


love made visible

by i_kinda_like_writing



Series: the perfect recipe [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Baking, Character Study, Closeted Character, Coming Out, Dex/Original Characters, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff, Friendship, Getting Together, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Implied Sexual Content, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Minor Eric Bittle/Jack Zimmermann, Minor Violence, Panic Attacks, Personal Growth, Racism, Rain, Slow Burn, Stress Baking, Symbolism, Team as Family, f-slur, it's happy I promise, see AN for details, so much baking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-29
Packaged: 2019-04-08 05:47:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 50,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14098584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_kinda_like_writing/pseuds/i_kinda_like_writing
Summary: Bitty hummed, turning off the mixer, and said, “Actually, sugar, my advice is much more subtle.” He grabbed a spatula, scraping down the sides of the bowl, and then pointed it at Dex. “Stop being an ass.”Dex squawked. “What? I am not-”“You really are.”Or, Dex learns love through baking, and a few other things happen along the way.





	1. step one - form the base

**Author's Note:**

> This fic arose from a prompt I got on Tumblr one day when I was home sick and miserable, and it just kind of blossomed from there. I really wanted to explore the relationship between Bitty and Dex over the years, so that's what I did.  
> Throughout the fic, there is an OC I created called Luke, and if you want to know more about him, I have some ficlets in which he is featured over on my tumblr, likeshipsonthesea, so come over if you want to check it out :)  
> Warnings for homophobia, the f-slur, allusions to death (very minor character) and drinking (ditto), and referenced sexual content- not explicit at all- just so you know.  
> Title is from a cooking quote that reads, "Cooking is just love made visible."  
> I wrote this pretty fast for what I usually do and I'm really excited about it. I hope you enjoy!

           When it rained at Samwell, things got softer. Voices mellowed in the hallways of the dorms, laughter came quicker, the smell of wet grass and damp bark permeated everything, and the wind became a lullaby that charmed the student body into something quieter than it truly was. It was a welcome change, for Dex, compared to the rains in Maine, that hit hard and fast and left ruin in their wake. After a storm once when he was young, his aunt’s roof just caved in, and they stayed at Dex’s house while they found the money to fix it, eight people with one bathroom, getting bitter and hard with each passing day.

           He liked rain at the Haus the best. It wasn’t like snowstorms, where they were stuck inside with no choice, but it deterred people from leaving, making things cozier, more comforting. The Haus suddenly became a home in the rain, to Dex, smelled more familiar, the scent of old wood soaked from the sky overpowered the ever-present tinge of frat boy and energy drink. That was why, when he saw the forecast for a rainy Friday, he made his way over to the Haus right after class.

           Bitty was there, in the kitchen as always, and Shitty was asleep up in his room, exhausted after a night of helping Lardo with her most recent piece. Jack was out, class maybe, and Ransom and Holster always worked out together on Fridays, so aside from the two of them, the Haus was empty. Dex pushed up his sleeves as he went into the kitchen, determined to do something productive and comforting, and Bitty set him up with a crumbly flour-salt-butter mixture he could push his emotions into to create the perfect ball of dough.

           Dex had never been to therapy- Poindexters didn’t go to therapy, not when the sadness hung a little too long or they found themselves unable to breathe when the hospitals bills came in the mail, never- but he assumed it was something like baking with Bitty. In between cups of flour and strawberry glazes, they let out the things they’d shoved inside their chests years before, behind their starving hearts and greedy lungs. They whispered at first, scared that if they were too loud someone would take it from them, but they got more comfortable with time, sharing, learning each other, finding solace and understanding as they worked through the recipe.

           If someone had told Dex, back during the Taddy Tour, that the person he’d have the most in common with on the team was Bitty, he probably would have laughed awkwardly or maybe punched them. But as the first months of the semester dragged on, Dex mostly watching from the outskirts, he found things of himself in Bitty. Despite his open smile and penchant for rambling, Bitty was a very closed off person, keeping his rougher bits locked up somewhere, undisturbed. There were times Bitty kept himself away, flinching when hands moved too fast and tucking his laughter behind a palm, quiet. Stifling yourself was something Dex knew well, too.

           Growing up small town, Sunday mass, loud families that spoke nothing of the reality they were in, it taught a boy things he needed to know. Some things you don’t talk about. It’s just easier that way. Why bring up Cousin Thomas and his accident, the car he totaled, his blood alcohol content? Why talk about how Aunt Marie lost the house, lost her son in the divorce, lost the light in her eye as she drank quietly through her days? Why bring up things that hurt to think about when you could just let them eat at you quietly, silently, because then who are you really hurting? Just yourself, right? That’s okay, right?

            Bitty understood that in a way that made Dex finally realize why it wasn’t okay. Dex didn’t have enough empathy for himself to realize how breaking himself apart for someone to find comfort in him wasn’t good, but seeing it in Bitty, seeing him pour everything into his pastries to give the team something warm, it made Dex realize that no one deserved that, least of all Bitty. But things were hard to outgrow, and Dex knew how to fix Bitty as much as he knew how to fix himself. So he did the only thing he could manage and joined him.

           The kitchen became a sacred ground, a confessional but without all the strings attached, without judgement. Bitty invited him over to bake and they’d talk, their accents getting heavier, twangier, even though they came from opposite places, still the same, somehow. They unloaded their burdens into the food, made them sweet with sugar and fruit, and gave them to the people they loved, absolution, in a way.

           It wasn’t always dense and sticky, like dough with too little flour. Sometimes their problems were strawberries cut into fourths or powdered sugar dusted over the tops of perfection. They complained of classes, ranted about  _that one guy_  in the library who was just such an asshole, lamented their course load and practice and how tired they sometimes were. Once the floodgates had opened, they talked about anything they could, desperate to find the relief of unloading, whether it be worrying about their next exam or the possible conditionality of their parents’ love, and it became one of Dex’s favorite times of the week, baking with Bitty in the quiet of the kitchen.

           Now, the rain at the window and the dough in his hands, Dex revisited one of his more familiar laments. “He’s just so much, Bits,” Dex said, sighing into the next push of the dough. “No one has ever been able to- provoke me like he does. Even back home, I could duck my head and avoid it, but he’s just- God.”

           Dex groaned his sorrow as Bitty laughed, softly, shaking his head from over at the mixer, where he was making the filling. “Dear Lord, hun, you’ve got it bad.”

           Dex was kind and didn’t mention Jack, who Bitty revealed only in start-stop sentences and sighs, and just asked, hopeless, “What do I do?” Before Bitty opened his mouth to respond, Dex continued, “I know what you’re going to say. You’re gonna say that I should just talk to him, work it out and be open about my emotions. Ugh.” Dex punched his dough, huffing, and it squished under his palm. It was reminiscent of cracking his knuckles on someone’s jaw, but so much kinder. Maybe that was progress.

           Bitty hummed, turning off the mixer, and said, “Actually, sugar, my advice is much more subtle.” He grabbed a spatula, scraping down the sides of the bowl, and then pointed it at Dex. “Stop being an ass.”

           Dex squawked. “ _What_? I am  _not-_ ”

           “You really are.” Bitty came over and took two saran wrapped discs of dough out of the fridge. Dex followed him, leaving his now-finished dough behind, as Bitty took the dough to the island and started to roll one out to put in the tin. Dex took up the remaining piece and his own rolling pin and did the same. “I know he provokes you, but hun, that’s half of friendship. ‘Specially here, with all these horrible, chirpy boys.” A petty part of Dex wanted to say something about the obvious, wistful fondness in Bitty’s eyes, but he said nothing. “You don’t play into it. You deflect, or shut him down, and you rarely, if ever, chirp him back.”

           “I do, sometimes,” Dex mumbled, knowing he had no leg to stand on.

           Bitty shot him a look. “I have the tweets to prove it.” He turned, laying the pie dough over the tin and beginning to push it down the sides. “Look, I know you’re scared for him to find out how you feel, but when you push him away like that, you’re not just hurting yourself- grab that filling for me, would you?” Dex turned to do so. “I can’t tell you that Nursey feels the same, because I don’t know that. But I can tell you that you’d both benefit from a nice friendship, and you’ll never get along like Ransom and Holster, but maybe you can make something for yourselves, something to fit you two. Alright?”

           Dex held the bowl of filling for Bitty as he scraped it into the tin. He sighed and said, “Alright. I- yeah. Yeah, that sounds like the best option.”

           “And who knows,” Bitty said, laying the flat dough Dex had rolled over the top of the full tin, “maybe your friendship will become enough. For me-” Bitty stopped, mouth screwed up, and he shook his head. He began primping the edges of the tin and Dex grabbed a knife to put some air holes in the top. “Having a friend like that is truly wonderful, sweetie. Just- just great.”

           Dex took the tin as they finished, sides crimped and perfect, and slid it into the preheated oven. He turned to see Bitty still at the island, hands curled tightly around its edges, and knew that being just friends probably wouldn’t be enough. But somethings people never outgrew, and Dex knew it wouldn’t hurt anyone but himself to be Nursey’s friend, and his decision was made easily, between raindrops.

 

*~*~*

 

            When Dex walked into the kitchen, Bitty was relaxing against the countertop, a pie already in the oven, and Nursey and Chowder sat at the island, laughing about something. Bitty watched them, fondness curling in his smile, and Dex tried not to draw attention to himself as he made his way to the dining table at the far end of the room. He’d been hoping that maybe he could help with baking something, but that obviously wasn’t the case, so he just sat down to outline an essay for his history class.

            It mostly worked, and he was able to make it through about half of his outline before he was distracted by Nursey talking. He was always distracted by Nursey’s mouth, one way or another. “...and she asked about you, Poindexter.”

            Dex looked up, quirking an eyebrow. “What?”

            Nursey huffed, like Dex was hopeless, and maybe he was. “I just explained- I went to see a play by the drama department last weekend, and during the after party, I got talking with this girl, Lindsay something, and when I told her I was on the hockey team, she asked if I knew you.”

            Dex flushed, remembering, and ducked his head back into his laptop. “Don’t know her.”

            Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nursey grin wide. He got off his barstool to come over and Dex tried not to flinch. “Really? She couldn’t remember how, but she swore she knew you. Down to the ears and everything.” Nursey flicked his ear and Dex didn’t manage to hold in his flinch that time. “Deets, dude. You hook up with her?” He slid into the seat next to Dex, his grin wide enough to swallow Dex whole.

            The truth was, back in September or so, high off his newfound freedom, Dex hooked up with this sophomore from the drama department, and after two more nights and learning that Dex was handy, he enlisted Dex’s help in building the set they needed for _Pippin_. Dex had worked in the stage crew back in high school, also because of someone he was dating, and knew his way around power tools, so he joined if only to keep the drama kids from permanently injuring themselves. Lindsay had played Fastrada and knew exactly why Dex had been there. The guy, Jamie, and Dex hooked up a few more times before Jamie got a real boyfriend, and after _Pippin_ ended, Dex got busy with games and coursework and hadn’t gone back.

            But he couldn’t exactly tell Nursey that, not when he’d never really managed to articulate it before, and he planned to just tell him to fuck off when he caught Bitty’s eye, silently reminding Dex of their conversation. Dex sighed and looked at Nursey, now almost bouncing in his eagerness. He said, “I don’t know about you, Nurse, but when I hook up with people, they remember it.”

            Chowder started giggling from the island and Nursey’s eyes went round and wide and Bitty smiled, proud. Dex flushed, caused by a mixture of pride and embarrassment because he was always embarrassed for one thing or another, and looked back at his forgotten outline. The little black bar blinked next to the last word he’d typed, _deconstruction_. He wanted to delete it out of spite, but didn’t, and maybe that was progress.

            “Well, then.” Nursey, recovered from his shock, smiled back at Dex, something curious in it that scared Dex. But he’d long since learned to live with fear, so he just looked back, expectant, an eyebrow quirked. “I guess that answers that.”

 

*~*~*

 

            Above his desk in his room, Dex had a bulletin board. One came in every dorm, both sides of the room for both desks, and Bitty had bought every frog a little container of thumbtacks in a variety of colors when school had started to use on it. Dex had a few things up there; a picture of his family at the beach and another one of his little cousins asleep in his living room, a calendar with important tests and dates marked, a little doodle Lardo made him of a lobster with a top hat. In the bottom left corner, closest to the door, he had the schedule of their games, roadies marked with a star written in green highlighter.

            Jack usually reminded everyone in the group chat and at practice of when their next game was, so Dex didn’t look at it much. But Jack didn’t always mention what team they were playing, unless it was a particularly difficult team to beat. The schedule had the names of the teams they were playing, and next to the game two days away was a wavering green star, messier than any of the others, because this Friday, they were playing Cornell, their second game with them, actually. Dex hadn’t realized- it had snuck up on him- he hadn’t even thought-

            It was raining as he made his way to the Haus, but he hardly noticed it. The Haus wasn’t empty, Holster and Ransom on the couch and noise from the upstairs hinting at a wrestling match between Shitty and Jack, but Bitty wasn’t there. Dex did something he’d never done before and began baking by himself. When he was really small, before his brother had the wherewithal to tease him for being in the kitchen, Dex had baked with his grandmother. She taught him how to bake her favorite pastries, made him recite recipes like he was taught to recite multiples in school, and he still remembered half of them over a decade later, fractions swimming behind his eyes so fast he had to pause to breathe for a moment.

            He chose a simple cookie recipe because he knew Bitty would have the ingredients. He grabbed things, remembering them in parts. Flour went with the salt and baking soda. Two types of sugar, brown and white, mixed in a bowl with butter. It was always a struggle to resist the temptation of eating some of that, buttery goodness coated in the sinful sweetness of both types of sugar. He knew it never tasted as good as he thought it would. He dumped the flour mixture and some eggs in there to keep himself away, then added some vanilla.

            Bitty didn’t have M&Ms, which was what the original recipe had used, but he had chocolate chips, and Dex dumped two thirds of the bag into the mixer and let it run. No one looked in on him, even though no one was really supposed to use the oven without Bitty’s supervision after the pizza pocket disaster a few months back. Dex wondered if they even knew he was here, and then wondered if that made him feel better or worse.

            As the first batch went into the oven, Bitty got home. “Dex, honey?” Dex just hummed back. “Are you okay?”

            Dex had his back to the doorway, putting balls of cookie dough down on a cookie sheet, three across, four down. The leftover chocolate chips were pressed into the tops, a secret his grandma had taught him. “This way,” she’d said, mischief in her eyes, “you don’t lose them in the dough.” Dex desperately pressed them into the balls of dough, not wanting to be lost.

            “Did I ever tell you about Luke?” Dex knew he hadn’t. He had unloaded many things in this kitchen. His fear, his relationship with his brother, his cowardice back home, his exhaustion. Luke was something of a mix of it all. Luke was never simple enough to let out between steps in a recipe, because he was temptation and dishonesty and failure, and Dex judged himself so deeply for Luke that he couldn’t bear letting someone else. But if he was going to play on Friday…

            “No, honey, who’s Luke?” Bitty made his way over to where Dex was at the counter, leaning back against it so he could see Dex’s face, but Dex didn’t look at him, couldn’t.

            Dex couldn’t just _say_ it, he needed- he needed- “Did you like any boys? Back in Georgia?”

            Bitty laughed, like it was easy, and said, “Dear Lord, of course I did.” He hopped up onto the counter, reclining back against the wall. “Let me see, there was Christian. Should’ve known better by the name alone. He was older, big and buff, a defensive player on my first hockey team. When he got a girlfriend I was moody for a week, my poor Mama had to deal with all my sad pies. Hmm, my lab partner in chemistry, Michael, he had the prettiest green eyes, but Lord was he dumb. The things he said nearly negated his looks. And Peter, he was a quarterback on my daddy’s team. He was sweet, had beautiful hair, I always wanted to touch it, and when he took his helmet off after a game, ooh, Lord.” Bitty turned his head, still smiling. “Did you like Luke?”

            Bitty’s talking, soothing and twangy in Dex’s ear, helped settle him a little. He said, “Luke was my captain. Senior, when I was a freshman. People-people knew I was- everyone thought I was a f-” Dex cut himself off at Bitty’s sharp intake of breath. “Luke adopted me, kind of. Gave me friends and took me to parties and-” Dex stared at his tray of cookies, three across and four down, with their chocolate chips on top.

            “Anyone would fall in love with that,” Bitty said, soft, and laid his hand on Dex’s shoulder, squeezing.

            Dex nodded and couldn’t seem to stop. “Yeah. Yeah.” He clenched his jaw for a second. “The first time he kissed me, I was drunk.” Bitty’s hand stuttered on his shoulder, confused. “I- wanted it, I did, I just-” He looked up and Bitty was staring at him, his kind eyes wide, and Luke had brown eyes, but they weren’t flaky pastries perfectly browned, they were firewood burning in bonfires, already half gone. “He was my- he took everything. And then he left. He went to Cornell- he played-plays hockey in college. And it didn’t feel real, I felt like I-like I’d made it up, like I was going crazy.”

            “Oh, honey.” Bitty’s eyes were so heavy with sympathy, Dex didn’t know what to do with it. He looked back down at his tray.

            “When he came home, on breaks and stuff, we’d pick it back up, and it-it was fine, I didn’t- I just felt so stuck, you know? And now- now that I’m _here_ , I’m just-” He wanted to say _angry_ , because he was, but it wasn’t that simple. The only thing he could compare it to was when his grandmother died, the mixture of grief and longing and fury, swirling around him, consuming him. For himself, for Luke, for that freshman version of himself who had wanted too much from high school, for the senior version of himself that didn’t think he’d ever find it, for himself wasting all that time being hopeless when _this_ was awaiting him at Samwell.

            Bitty said nothing, but he pulled Dex over and hugged him, arms tight around his back, and Dex buried his face in Bitty’s shoulder, trying not to cry.

            “Do I smell cookies?” Dex pulled back and turned to see Ransom and Holster sticking their heads in the kitchen.

            “Yes, actually, Dex made some. Why don’t you both go and grab Jack and Shitty and we’ll watch a movie, hmm?” Bitty smiled encouragingly and Ransom and Holster ran off to do what they were told. He looked back to Dex. “You alright to stay?”

            “Yeah,” Dex said, his voice only a little scratchy. “Yeah, thank you.”

            Bitty smiled, soft and sad. “Anytime, hun.”

 

*~*~*

 

            Kegsters were louder than any other parties Dex had ever been to. Holster had connections in the drama department and always managed to borrow their big ass speakers for shows, shoving them in Ransom’s minivan and sticking them in the windows of the Haus living room. Together, Ransom and Holster knew everyone on campus, and nearly all of their contacts stopped by every time they had a party. Dex had no idea how the Haus survived it, sure that the sound alone was enough to cave in the roof, but time and time again, the Haus survived and the kegster was amazing.

            Dex rarely gave in to the music and let himself dance, but today he was coming off a physics exam that he’d fucking _aced_ , and he was ridiculously proud of himself, a cup of tub juice in and loose with his body. It was a pit of bodies in the living room, everyone shoved up close together with sweat slicking the way for movement. It was because of that that Dex didn’t mind behind pressed up behind a guy in public. If anyone said anything, he could claim the tightness of the room made him do it, even if his nose was tucked behind the guy’s ear, breathing heavy and mumbling how good he was, how hot.

            The song changed and the guy turned around, pupils blown, and Dex knew he was down. It had been a while since he’d gone home with a guy, since Jamie maybe, so he said, “Meet you outside in five?” and, after the guy nodded, Dex made his way to the kitchen. He couldn’t be seen leaving with the guy outright, wasn’t ready for that, so he assumed this slight detour would be enough to throw off suspicion. He grabbed a water bottle out of the fridge to help remove the haziness from his mind, and halfway through it, Nursey came in.

            Nursey puttered around the drinks table for a minute before pouring himself a cup of tub juice from the cooler Shitty had stolen from the rink. Dex vaguely wondered who was on Nursey Patrol tonight, but didn’t let himself focus on it. He may be hopelessly gone on Nursey, but he couldn’t let himself give up a sure thing to look after him. He was sure Nursey would be fine. Nursey turned around, leaning back against the counter as he took a sip from his cup, and Dex watched as he knocked a stack of cups into the sink, smothering his smile in his water bottle.

            Nursey ignored it and said, “That guy you were dancing with wants to fuck you.”

            Dex choked on his water. “What?”

            Nursey smirked lazily, pleased with himself. “I saw it, dude. He would’ve been down to do you right there.” He snickered into his drink. “Not that you would’ve done it.”

            Dex tried to look at him flatly. “Like you’d fuck a guy in the middle of a dance floor.”

            Nursey shrugged. “Depends on who the guy is.”

            Dex looked heavenwards, but he didn’t think God would help him with this. “God, Nurse.”

            Nursey continued to grin. “So, you gonna do it?”

            “What?”

            “Fuck him?” Dex stared at him, trying to figure out his angle. Nursey typically had a reason when he said things. Usually that reason was to provoke Dex, but Nursey was generally better at it than this.

            Dex tried not to lie directly, so he went for sarcastic. “Let’s wait to see where the night takes us,” he said, into the mouth of his bottle, and Nursey didn’t laugh as Dex took a sip. Dex couldn’t tell why, if Nursey didn’t buy his tone or something else, but Nursey watched him, eyes strangely focused for being drunk. Dex’s eyes flitted to the stove, where the clock told him his time was up. He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “I’m gonna head out. Don’t drink too much, yeah? We’ve got practice tomorrow.”

            “Yeah,” Nursey said, but Dex didn’t know if he was actually listening.

            Dex nodded. “See you, Nurse.”

            Outside, he met the guy on the sidewalk, and they walked to the guy’s dorm. Dex pushed his hands up under the guy’s shirt, reveled in his moans, put his mouth to sweaty skin and bit down. He lost himself in the push and pull, like dancing almost, just let himself feel good. Afterwards, he left, because what else was he going to do? It was raining as he walked home, cooling his heated skin. When he got back to his dorm, his roommate was asleep, so he stripped quietly, getting under his duvet. He checked his phone before he fell asleep, like he always did. He had one message.

_Nurse_

_goodnight dex_

 

*~*~*

 

            Sometimes, on Sundays, Bitty made big team breakfasts, with biscuits and bacon and sausages and anything else Dex could think of. After one night being sexiled by his roommate, Dex woke up at the Haus and helped Bitty make it, watching over eggs dutifully and flipping pancakes like a pro. Bitty sent a text out in the group chat, so Chowder came over with Farmer just as Ransom and Holster came down the stairs. Jack returned from his run just as Lardo made it, Ollie and Wicks behind them. Shitty came down yawning, rubbing at his messy bedhead, and completely naked, and Nursey arrived a few minutes after that.

            “Whoa!” Ransom said, and Holster whistled lowly. Dex turned from his position at the stove to see what they meant and saw it instantly. “Someone was busy last night,” Ransom said, smiling slyly, and Nursey chuckled, unembarrassed about the giant hickey at the base of his neck. Dex turned back to his eggs.

            “Yeah, yeah, you know how it is.” The self-satisfaction in Nursey’s voice shouldn’t have had any effect on Dex, but it did, and he curled his fingers tighter around his spatula.

            “C’mon, bro, deets,” Holster said, and Dex might have hated him in that moment.

            “Nah, man, a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.” Nursey presumably sat at the dining table, the scrape of a chair against the floor, but Dex didn’t turn to look.

            “A gentleman also doesn’t have his own spit spot in a locker room,” Shitty said flatly.

            “At least tell us who it was,” Ransom said.

            “This guy from the soccer team,” Nursey said, and Dex drowned him out as he kept talking, trying to put all his focus into the eggs.

            Bitty leaned into his space and said, quiet, “I’m sorry, hun.”

            Dex shrugged. “It’s fine.”

            Bitty winced. “You sure?”

            “Yeah, I mean. I can’t be, like, mad or whatever. And it’s not like I haven’t-” Dex flushed. He still wasn’t used to talking freely about hooking up, as he’d avoided the subject so heavily back home.

            Bitty, though, raised his eyebrows, grinning in a way Dex hadn’t thought him capable of. “Have you now? And you don’t give a poor boy any details. Tsk, tsk, tsk.” Bitty shook his head. “How ungrateful you are.”

            Dex huffed a laugh, appreciating the change in subject. “I could tell you, if you want. You sure you could handle it?”

            “Now, Mister, I’m from the south. I _thrive_ on dirty gossip.” He hip bumped Dex and Dex laughed, louder this time, pleasantly flushed. “Alright, y’all, who wants pancakes?” Bitty turned, brandishing a plate piled high with pancakes, and everyone began to shout, fighting over one another to get the biggest one.

            Afterwards, when everyone was full and groaning with it, they sacked out on the couch, watching some show on Netflix Holster had chosen. Dex had a study group, so he had to go, though he really wished he could stay, sit in a pile on the floor with the overflow from the couch and let the comfort of it all wash over him. He was responsible though, so he began to gather his stuff from the night before and turned to go, only to be stopped by Jack on the porch.

            “Hey, um, Dex.” Jack fidgeted where he stood, incredibly awkward, enough to make Dex feel it too. Most of the time, Jack and him got along just fine, no awkwardness, just quiet smiles over the team breakfast table and quick chirping on roadies after games. The only time Dex could remember being this awkward with Jack was back during his first kegster, when Dex had overestimated his tolerance for tub juice and brought a boy down to the Haus basement, where the laundry room was. He’d just been about to blow the guy when someone knocked on the door. Apparently, Jack thought the perfect time to do laundry was during a kegster, unfortunately for Dex’s dick. When he’d opened the door, obviously flustered and undeniably in the situation he was in, they’d both just coughed awkwardly, refused to make eye contact, and Dex had run away after Jack assured him he wouldn’t mention it again.

            Now, Dex almost wished he was back there, if only to get away from this moment. “What’s up?” He played with the strap of his backpack, slung over his shoulder.

            “I just-” Jack frowned, deeply, the muscles in his jaw working tirelessly, and it was kind of distracting. Dex completely understood Bitty’s turmoil, if maybe not to the same degree. “Are you and Bitty dating?”

            Dex blinked. “What?”

            “Just, in the kitchen. You were smiling and bumping each other and-” Jack looked scarily close to having an aneurysm, his face all screwed up and tense, so Dex cut him off before he could say more.

            “No, _no_ , dude, no, we’re just friends. He- we have lot in common, so we got close, but- not like that. Not at _all_. I promise.”

            Jack stared at him for a minute or two more and then nodded. “Okay. I- team dynamics, you know?”

            No, Dex didn’t know, but he decided to let Jack off easy and agreed. He left quickly, partly because he still felt awkwardness around the edges of their conversation and partly because of his study group, but on his way to the library, he sent Bitty a quick text, telling him what had happened. Bitty didn’t respond, but Dex thought that was enough of a response on its own.

 

*~*~*

 

            Bitty made crepe batter, but had to run out before he could make them to help Lardo with an art thing. Dex, who had been there unloading about the conversation he’d had with his brother that morning, offered to make them while Bitty was out. So now he was pouring crepe batter into a circular pan and waiting until it bubbled in the middle to flip it. He attempted to flip it the way real chefs did, just with a flick of his wrist, and it worked out, kind of, so he continued to flip them that way, grinning every time it landed in the pan.

            “Hmm, crepes?” Dex was so consumed in his flipping that he didn’t know Nursey had come in until he was right behind him. Dex jumped, thankfully not ruining the crepe, and sent Nursey a dirty look. Nursey just smiled, knowing exactly what he did.

            “Bitty made them,” Dex said shortly. “Had to run out.”

            “Anyone else home?” Nursey asked, sitting down at the island and pulling out his laptop.

            “No.” Jack, Holster, and Shitty all had class and Ransom was in lab, or at least that was what Dex thought he said as he mumbled out the door.

            “You and Bitty do that a lot,” Nursey said, presumably waiting for his laptop to turn on. “Bake together.”

            Dex shrugged. He didn’t have a chirp to respond to that, even though he’d been getting better at chirping Nursey in the past couple of months or so. “We talk,” he said simply, hoping Nursey wouldn’t ask anything more.

            He should’ve known better. Nursey laughed, an edge to it, and asked, “What could you two have to talk about?”

            Nursey did that a lot. If he saw even the tiniest opening, where Dex was awkward or closed off, he poked at it, greedy and pleasantly cruel. Dex assumed he did it to get Dex to explode, which worked when it was simple things, like passes not connecting or what the best lunch food was, but Dex had years of practice hiding his secrets, and he turned in on himself a lot when Nursey touched something that hurt. Nursey never seemed as proud of himself when it happened, but still he kept trying. Dex didn’t know what he was looking for.

            The gleeful meanness in Nursey’s voice pissed Dex off, though, and he turned around to see Nursey grinning, a knife’s edge, waiting for Dex’s reaction. And maybe Dex was used to pain more than comfort, because he said, “I don’t know, Nurse, maybe use your imagination. You’re supposed to be good at that, right?”

            Nursey huffed, short, an incredulous noise. “You and Bitty-”

            Dex’s phone started buzzing on the countertop, cutting off whatever Nursey was about to say, and Dex reached for it, hesitant. The screen said it was JJ calling, his brother. He debated answering it, but decided avoiding it would only make it worse. “Hello?” The last crepe seemed to have enough time in the pan, so he put it on a plate and turned off the burner. JJ didn’t need any more fire than he already had.

            “Baby bro!” JJ cheered, and Dex instantly knew he was drunk. He glanced at the oven’s clock. 2:03.

            “Why aren’t you at work?” Dex asked, trying to be quiet even though he knew it was futile. Everything traveled in the Haus.

            “Sent me home, Willy,” JJ said, hiccupping at the end. “‘parently our talk made me “unfit to work”. Load a shit, that’s’wha’ih’is.”

            “Are you at the bar? Give your keys to Tom.” The thought of JJ driving home like this clutched at Dex’s chest and he thought of Cousin Thomas, driving into that family’s car, ending his own life and changing theirs forever. “JJ? Are you listening to me?”

            “Tom- Tom, he already called Deanne. She’s coming to get me, kid, don’t-don’t worry.” Dex relaxed, but found he couldn’t hold himself up like that and clutched at the counter. “I wouldn’t do that, you know that.”

            “Yeah, yeah, J, I know.” It went quiet and Dex wondered if JJ had just fallen asleep or something. “JJ?”

            “You know I don’t care that you’re a fag, right?” Dex shut his eyes tightly, his heart tired with all the stress. They didn’t usually talk about it, but JJ knew, knew because everybody back home thought they knew, and JJ was the only one who asked and Dex couldn’t deny it, not to someone who had the same tells as him. JJ had known for years. But most of the time they could ignore it, push it to the back like everything else, and maybe Dex had spoken too freely this morning, complained too much about Nursey. He tried to stay on words like “rich prick” or “condescending jerk” but JJ had always known him too well- they had been raised the same way- and JJ had said the shit he always said, and Dex couldn’t handle it because Samwell was making him softer, for better or worse. But JJ never knew when to quit, no Poindexter did, so he kept going, “You know- just you can’t be a fag here. I don’t care, but people do, and Mom and Dad-”

            “I know, J. Okay? I know. I wouldn’t- you know I’d never tell them.”

            “I’m sorry, kid.”

            “I know. I know.” The drag of the barstool against the floor reminded Dex that he wasn’t alone. “Get home safe, okay? I’ll call you later.”

            “Yeah,” JJ said, sighed, and hung up a moment later. Dex dropped the phone from his ear and stared at the screen. Two minutes and twenty three seconds. It was remarkable that such a short time could change so much.

            “Dex?” he heard from behind him, Nursey’s voice now softer, laced with confusion and blind sympathy Dex didn’t want.

            “Don’t chirp me for this, okay? Just- don’t.” He meant the call, but maybe he meant the baking, too. He wished Bitty was here because he knew Bitty would understand, but he had Nursey, whose hand landed hesitantly on Dex’s elbow, trying to offer something Dex didn’t know how to receive.

            “I won’t,” Nursey said, and pulled until Dex turned towards him, his eyes wide with something Dex wasn’t used to. “Let’s eat the crepes, okay? And watch something. Bitty won’t mind.”

            So they sat on the couch and Nursey put on Brooklyn Nine-Nine because he was appalled that Dex had never seen it, and Dex slowly started to laugh as the episodes went on, a plate of crepes between them, finally sharing something for the first time.

 

*~*~*

 

            Dex didn’t know how Lardo’s mind worked. He was fairly sure that it was the exact definition of organized chaos. She somehow managed to remember to take care of twenty horribly irresponsible hockey players while maintaining a grade high enough to keep her financial aid and create the most creative and interesting pieces of art Dex had ever seen in his life at the same time. Everything she did was carefully calculated for the optimal result, and he had more faith in her ability than he did in the idea that the sun would come up tomorrow- because if it didn’t, he knew Lardo would handle it. That was why he had no idea why she put him and Nursey in the same room for the roadie to Yale.

            They sat together on the bus because they were hockey players and therefore were at least some degree of superstitious, and after Ollie refused to sit between them in the locker room and Ransom couldn’t be separated from Holster for longer than a minute, they sat next to one another as they pulled on their gear and laced up their skates. And sure, most of that time was spent with headphones in or not speaking to each other, but there was only so much time they could spend with one another before something exploded.

            But after the game- they lost, 2-1, and everyone took it hard, especially this late in the season- they trudged back to the hotel and Nursey and Dex went off into their room together. Nursey had first shower as Dex texted his mom, saying goodnight, because he hadn’t talked to her in a few days. They swapped after Nursey came out of the bathroom, and Dex took a little longer than he usually did in the shower, trying to wash off the game and maybe prepare himself for a night rooming with Nursey.

            He was pulling on his t-shirt, skin still too damp for it to be comfortable, as he came out of the bathroom, and as his head popped through the collar he found Nursey sitting on his bed, an Oreo halfway to his mouth, frozen, caught. As Dex pulled the shirt down to his waist, he raised an eyebrow at Nursey. Nursey swallowed the Oreo already in his mouth and said, visibly frightened, “Don’t tell Bitty.”

            Dex couldn’t help but laugh. “Dude.”

            “Seriously. His stuff is better than anything I’ve ever had in my _life_ , but, like.” Nursey glanced guiltily down at the package of Oreos open on his bed.

            “Sometimes a bro needs an Oreo,” Dex said, smiling, and Nursey looked up, his lips quirking. “I promise not to tell if you share.”

            Nursey rolled his eyes. “I guess I could spare a few.”

            Dex made one of his braver decisions in life and sat down on Nursey’s bed, reaching into the package and pulling out two cookies. “Peanut butter? Nice.”

            “It’s obviously the best flavor.” Nursey took a bite and chewed silently for a minute, and Dex said nothing as he ate his own cookies. “At Andover, all the food was healthy stuff, you know? No one trusted a bunch of high school students to make good decisions about their diet. And for a bunch of rich kids, we didn’t really have spending money for snacks and crap. So junk food became, like, contraband.”

            Dex snorted. “Trading Cheetos for test answers?”

            Nursey smiled. “Yeah, something like that.” He twisted each side of his next cookie and licked at the exposed filling. Dex looked away. “When I found out that peanut butter Oreos were a thing I lost my shit. I’m pretty sure I traded gear duty for a month for three packs from my d-man in, like, junior year.”

            “Solid deal,” Dex said, and Nursey smiled. It felt important, somehow, that Dex offer something back, so he said, “I took a pack of Oreos to a bake sale once. My brother wouldn’t let me get away with baking anything myself and it was Valentine’s Day so my mom wasn’t home, so I used my allowance to get a package.” Dex shook his head. “The PTA moms looked at me like I was homeless or some shit, so I ate the entire pack behind the bleachers by myself.”

            “Damn.”

            “Ah, it was fine, just had a little stomachache.” Dex managed to glance up, smile tightly, and Nursey seemed to take it.

            “What’s so big about Valentine’s Day?” Nursey asked, and for once it didn’t feel prying, simply curious, and Dex wondered if he’d just been interpreting it wrong or if something had changed.

            “My mom works at a nursey,” Dex said, gesturing with his cookie. “Flowers. Certain holidays, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, she’s never home. Even Christmas, they do trees and decorations and stuff, so she’s out all day for a week or two around the day.”

            “That sucks, man.”

            Dex shrugged. “I had my brother, so I wasn’t alone or anything.”

            Nursey was still frowning at him, looking caught between something. After a minute he said, “Before Andover, I was home alone a lot. Not as, like, a real little kid, I had a nanny then, but in middle school. My parents worked a lot, lots of travel, you know? A lot of the time, ‘cause of time zones, I couldn’t even say goodnight or anything. It got- lonely.”

            It felt important, Nursey telling him this, and Dex wanted to let him know he understood, but he wasn’t sure how. He quirked his lips upwards and said, “Can’t be lonely here.” He gestured around himself, but he meant Samwell. “Always someone here to bug you.”

            Dex didn’t feel like he said it right, but Nursey smiled anyway, said, “Got your back,” and it felt like understanding, maybe.

 

*~*~*

 

_Bitty_

_would you like to come help me make a pie??_

            Dex went straight from his class to the Haus, as Bitty had never invited him over the bake if he wasn’t already at the Haus before. He may have run part of the way because he was so worried, even if he couldn’t pinpoint why exactly. Surely if something was really wrong, Bitty would say as much, right? When Dex couldn’t answer that and believe it, he ran faster, and made it to the Haus in record time. He was panting as he entered the kitchen to find Bitty pushing a ball of dough together with every muscle in his body.

            “Bits?” Dex said between harsh breaths.

            Bitty looked up and his eyes were red and Dex’s heart clenched in his chest. “Oh, honey, you’re out of breath.” He wiped his flour covered hands on his apron and came over, pushing at Dex’s chest lightly. “Here, sit down, sit, sit, why would you-?”

            “Bitty.” Bitty stopped pushing him, staring up at Dex with his wide eyes. Dex didn’t know how to ask him what was wrong, not in such plain words, so he covered it with sugar, the way Bitty taught him to. “Could I help with the pie?”

            Bitty stared at him for a moment or two before nodding greedily. “Yes, yes, of course, hun. C’mere.” Dex rolled up his sleeves and took the piece of dough Bitty gave him, standing shoulder to shoulder- or, er, shoulder to elbow- at the counter as they formed it. Dex just waited it out, knowing things were easier to say when no one was looking. Eventually, between a smush and a fold, Bitty said, “My mama called.”

            Dex hummed.

            “I love when Mama calls, she always has great gossip on the ladies at church. You know, she said Mrs. Merriwick has been wearing red lipstick to football practices, and everyone says she’s looking to pick up the assistant coach while her husband is in the city, working, but the word is that Mr. Merriwick has his own floozy in the city, so really, it’s only fair that Mrs. Merriwick gets some for herself, don’t you think?” Bitty’s accent was stronger, rolling his words together, warm, like dough under a rolling pin.

            “Seems fair,” Dex responded, even though he knew it wasn’t relevant.

            “And, anyway, all that talk of affair got Mama all stuck on love and such. You know she and my daddy met in college?” Bitty pushed too hard at his dough and it slipped against the counter. “My daddy was on the football team, best fullback they ever saw, and all the girls were swoonin’ for him, but my mama, she was in one of his classes. She wanted to go into teaching like he did, ‘cept daddy wasn’t too good at math, so he asked her to tutor him. Already gone for her when he did, he says, but mama says he didn’t fall in love with her until he tasted her hummingbird cake- which is _not_ a euphemism, Mister, before you start giggling.

            “They dated all through college, got married right out of it, had me a few years later, anyway, you probably can figure what happened from there. They always told me that story, growing up. I loved fairytales, little romantic I was, and Mama loved telling it and Coach loved to butt in and correct her.” Bitty shook his head, his hands pressed into the dough, unmoving. “Mama always wanted that for me. My own fairytale. Growing up, she knew I wasn’t- I didn’t have many friends, and I reckon she just thought I was shy. She thought- when I got to college, _then_ I’d start datin’. Find a nice girl, bake her a pie or somethin’, make my own story to tell my kids.”

            Bitty’s mouth screwed to the side and his eyes, no longer on the dough, had unfocused, staring blankly out the window. It had started to rain, and it rattled against the screen softly. It was the only thing Dex could hear aside from Bitty’s breathing, which had gotten steadily louder as he spoke. The Haus was almost never quiet, and Dex wondered if it was holding its breath just like he was.

            “She wants me to talk about pretty girls and-and moon over them to her, and I’m sure if I liked them, I’d love to tell her, gossip with her, give her that. But I can’t tell her about the boy in my econ class or-or the cute barista at Annie’s or Ja-” Bitty swallowed harshly. “I want to tell her so bad.”

            Dex didn’t have anything to tell him, because he hadn’t found a solution for himself yet. He’d brought girls home for his parents, and they’d liked them all well enough, but he could never bring home a boy. Even if Nursey- even if that became a thing- which it wouldn’t, Dex knew- but even if it did, Dex couldn’t tell them, even though his mom had the same sense of humor and his dad loved the same boring books Nursey did, even though they’d love Nursey. And when his mom talked about his future, talked about the wife he’d have one day, how she couldn’t wait for his wedding, it wasn’t that it couldn’t happen, just that smiling back at her felt like a surrender, and he’d never run from a fight before.

            But Dex didn’t know how to fix it, never knew how to fix the things that counted, so he said, “You can tell me.”

            Bitty looked at him then, his eyes wet, and he smiled, fragile. “Oh, hun.”

            “I know it’s not the same but-” _but it’s something_.

            Bitty laughed softly, shaking his head, but he kept smiling. “Where-where should I start?”

            “How about that barista? I bet I can guess which one it is.” Bitty smiled, ducking his head. “It’s the one whose polo is a size too small, right? I totally know your type.” Bitty laughed, bright and surprised, and his head fell back a little. Dex grinned, proud of himself. “He’s got nice arms. Not as nice as mine, but pretty good.” Bitty shouldered him in the side and shook his head.

            “Confidence is nice on you, sugar,” he said, a tinge of sarcasm but mostly sincere, and Dex hugged Bitty briefly before going to grab the ingredients for the filling. Bitty started talking as he did, musing over what the boy in his econ class was like in bed, and Dex flushed but giggled with him over the mixer. They talked through the entire recipe, trading crushes like candy, and when the pie came out of the oven, it tasted sweet.

 

*~*~*

 

            “Can’t you go any faster?” Shitty leaned over Dex’s shoulder, which did not increase his speed at all, and actually impeded it.

            “Shits, let him be. I’m sure he is going as fast as he can,” Jack said, because Jack was a normal human being, and Shitty removed his face from Dex’s personal space.

            “It’ll only be another couple of minutes,” Dex said calmly, even though he currently had his body wedged between an oven and a counter. He’d already detached Betsy from the wall, but the new oven didn’t have the same set up as she did. Most likely because they weren’t made in the same century. It meant that Dex had to do some rewiring, which took finesse, especially when he wasn’t sure if he’d turned off electricity to the kitchen or the attic. The breaker box wasn’t labeled well, and Shitty’s assurance that the toaster didn’t work when Dex flipped the switch meant next to nothing, as the toaster was about as old as Betsy was.

            “We only have a couple of minutes. Nursey and Chowder can only distract him for so long. I’m pretty sure if Bits is away from a kitchen for too long he starts to decompress.” Shitty’s fidgeting- even though Dex couldn’t see it he could _feel_ it- was getting him too annoyed to focus.

            “Why don’t you go party, Shitty? I’ll get it done, I promise, just go have some tub juice or something.” Dex glanced behind him, trying to emphasize how little Shitty’s presence was helping.

            Shitty frowned at him. “Have I taught you nothing? _Never_ drink the tub juice. You don’t know what’s in there. I don’t even know what’s in there and I made it.” Shitty tsked and turned to walk away, shaking his head, and Dex sighed, returning his attention to the oven.

            “He just gets nervous before important things,” Jack said, his voice less irritating. “He means well.”

            “I know, man, I just really don’t want to get electrocuted today. It would totally ruin Bits’ new oven if it killed me before he could use it.” Jack huffed a soft laugh, which Dex felt pretty proud of causing. “It’s really nice that you did this though, dude. He’s gonna love it.”

            “It was a group gift.”

            Dex scoffed kindly, turning to grab pliers and shooting Jack a look as he did. “But it was your idea.” Jack flushed and ducked his head a little, his hair flopping over his forehead charmingly, and Dex’s chest clenched in sympathy for Bitty, having to see this all the time with how he felt. “Seriously, it was probably the best gift you could’ve given him. Baking is really important to him.”

            “Yeah,” Jack agreed, laughter in his voice.

            “No, I mean, it’s _really_ important. Growing up like-” Dex paused to strip a wire. “Like we did, things like baking or hockey, they were the only way to, like, actually let out emotions. It’s basically therapy, as weird as that sounds. You understand?”

            “Yeah,” Jack said, this time his voice softer. “Yeah, I think I do.”

            Dex pulled back from the oven and smiled. “Good.”

            In about ten minutes, Bitty walked through the door and started crying. He hugged Jack, Dex, Shitty, and then Jack again, and none of them minded the tears on their shirts following it. Bitty refused to leave the kitchen, wanting to bake something right away, but Dex filtered through the people to make his way to the back porch for some quiet, and to get himself some tub juice. Despite Shitty’s warnings, he knew he wouldn’t have it for at least a few months after this- Lardo was the holder of the recipe now, so this wouldn’t be the last time ever- and Dex wanted to have at least one cup, for posterity’s sake.

            Nursey found him, Bitty’s phone clutched in his hand. Dex gestured at it with his cup. “How’s tweeting?”

            Nursey laughed, soft and breathy, in a way that ruined Dex. “Fun, actually. I feel like they all know me, even though I don’t know them.”

            Dex wrinkled his nose. “Creepy.”

            “Kind of. It’s also cool. I feel like a celebrity.” Dex shook his head at him, but he smiled into his tub juice. “You’re next you know. Two out of three frogs have tweeted from Bitty’s account now. You gotta come in with the hatty.”

            Nursey grinned at him and Dex rolled his eyes. “I doubt they want me tweeting at them.”

            “Nah, a couple people asked me about you.” Nursey shook the phone enticingly. “They totally wanna know you.”

            “What’d you tell them?” Dex asked, apparently brave now, with a few sips of tub juice in him. “About me?” he added, because no amount of alcohol would make him less awkward.

            “Oh, I didn’t reply,” Nursey said, swiping at the screen, and Dex tried not to let his heart drop. Nursey got a smirk on his face, though, and turned to show Dex, almost lazy in his movements. “My feelings for you, Poindorkster, could not be contained to 140 characters.”

            Dex managed something like a grin back, even as his heart pounded in his chest. “Maybe 141? For that last thumbs down emoji?”

            Nursey laughed, a pleasant noise, and Dex hoped that it, like the tub juice, would last him all summer.


	2. step two - make it sweet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She shrugged. “Whatever. So why aren’t we gonna fuck? You gay?”  
> It took Dex a moment to remember that she wasn’t trying to provoke him, simply asking. “No, I’m-”  
> “You sure? I’ve kissed a bunch of gay guys, don’t feel bad-”  
> “No, I-”  
> “Dude, it’s Samwell, there’s like a 25% chance-”  
> “No, I’m not- I’m bi, okay? I’m bi.” The girl shrugged again, drinking her water, and Dex realized that this was the first time he’d ever said the actual words. Bi. Bisexual. He was bi. Not- broken, or a fag, or confused. A whole person.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! This next part time jumps from Chapter 1, which ended at the end of Dex's frog year. This chapter begins at the end of Dex's first semester as a softie (which is the end of Bitty's first semester as a junior, which becomes important in the next chapter).  
> As far as warnings go for this chapter, there is some homophobic language, internalized homophobia, references to racism, panic attacks, and a character dealing with being closeted. In addition, there is some vague sexual content, not graphic but it's there, so keep that in mind. I realized with this chapter that I will be adding tags as I go, so be sure to recheck prior to reading new chapters to make sure you're chill with what's being dealt with in the fic.  
> Also, as far as tags go, I made a mistake with the relationship tags and forgot to put Nursey/Dex there. This IS endgame Nursey/Dex, so won't worry, but I can't manage to make it the first tag for some reason. Dex/OCs is not endgame nor is it the most important part of the fic.  
> I hope you enjoy!

            As Dex’s first semester as a softie came to a close, he showed up at the Haus more often, no longer to escape his roommate, as he had a single this year, but just to be with people he loved. Lardo always needed help with art, whether it be carrying something or posing or talking to her while she worked so she didn’t go out of her mind. Holster and Ransom were always down to play video games or watch movies or grab coats to go outside and pelt each other with snowballs. Chowder loved having Dex and Nursey in his room, said it felt like a sleepover, and they did sleep over a few times, not feeling like walking back to the dorms.

            Dex still baked with Bitty regularly, talking about things he didn’t dare touch elsewhere, though it had gotten easier to talk freely with others, too, as time went on. They still talked about the things they’d buried, but sometimes they just talked about happy things, pleasant things, and pushed those into their pastries, too, making them taste lighter, somehow. A few days before the holiday break, Dex stopped by simply because he wanted to do something with his hands. Snow fell outside as he worked, piling up slowly but steadily on the windowsill, and Dex watched it intermittently, smiling.

            “I wanted to tell you,” Bitty said after a while. He and Jack had told all three of the frogs they were together just days before. It wasn’t nearly the surprise they thought it was, as there’d been hints since the start of the semester that they’d been together. At first, Dex thought that Bitty had just turned his pining up a notch, but then, when Jack visited, and he saw the way Jack looked at him, Dex knew.

            He didn’t say anything, not even to Chowder or Nursey. Felt sacred, and, anyway, he knew it was Bitty’s choice, and he was gonna respect Bitty’s choice like Bitty respected Dex’s not to come out to the team. Still, almost everybody knew by the time they finally told, everyone except Chow, actually, who freaked out and cried and was incredibly happy for the rest of the night.

            “I understand, Bits,” Dex said, now, because he didn’t want Bitty feeling guilty or whatever.

            “No, it’s just ‘cause- baking with you, in this kitchen, it just feels- special, you know? And I wanted to tell you, ‘cause I tell you just about everything, it’s like I’m at church or somethin’.” Bitty laughed, shaking his head as he did latticework on the blueberry pie about to go into the oven. It was Holster’s to take back home with him for the holidays. Ransom’s pecan one was already out, cooling. They were leaving that night. “And I almost said it a hundred times, I swear, but-”

            “Bitty.” Bitty stopped rambling and looked up. Dex offered him a small smile. “Sometimes there’s things just for you. You shouldn’t feel obligated to say anything you don’t want to.”

            Bitty smiled back. “Yeah, hun, but I wanted to.”

            Dex went over and hugged him with one arm, pulling Bits into his side. “Now you have.” He lifted the last strand of pie dough, finishing Bitty’s lattice, and took the pie tin from him. “And now you can wax about Jack’s eyes, or whatever.” He went over to the oven and slid the pie tin into it.

            Bitty sighed. “He does have wonderful eyes, doesn’t he?” Dex laughed to himself and straightened up, closing the oven. He turned around and smiled, listening as Bitty talked about his and Jack’s relationship, picking up through the pauses between his words that he wanted to tell his parents, and that it was eating at him. Still, he seemed really happy, and Dex was happy for him, even if there was a small part of himself that didn’t like being alone now with his ridiculous, unattainable crush.

 

*~*~*

 

            Being back home for break felt a lot like the summer break had felt. Lonely, in a way, because the people back in Maine knew him as someone else, someone he didn’t quite know to be anymore. He still loved his family, loved picking his little cousins up off the ground and commiserating with the cousins his age when their parents got drunk at parties and sang too loud to the radio. He entertained his aunts and uncles with college stories, still a novelty, as he was one of the few Poindexters to attend. He liked receiving his mom’s warm smiles and hearing his dad’s booming laughs and even liked seeing JJ, for the few, silent moments they stood together, drinking beer.

            But he still felt displaced, like he wasn’t truly home anymore. Home was in the kitchen with Bitty, or on the couch between Ransom and Holster, or even in his dorm with Nursey taking up too much space because his own dorm- just across the hall from Dex’s- was occupied by an inconsiderate roommate. The Haus, Samwell, was home now, and Dex didn’t know how to feel about that. He’d always planned, vaguely, to come back to Maine after college, find a job in comp sci online or something, and work enough to support his parents, maybe find a nice girl from town to settle down with. But the longer he spent away the more he seemed to like it, like himself, when he wasn’t in Maine. Increasingly, the idea of living here forever seemed like high school had; stifling.

            A day or so before Christmas, Dex needed a break from everything, so he pulled on a jacket, a scarf, some gloves, and hesitated for a second before pulling Nursey’s stolen green beanie onto his head, and walked out the door. It’d snowed the other day in Maine, so the sidewalks were slippery with a night’s worth of ice, but Dex didn’t mind taking it slow. He used to run a lot in high school, would wind through the woods, sprinting until his entire body burned with it. It used to be one of the few ways he felt like he could escape, running hard enough to make himself dizzy with it.

            A car slowed to a stop next to the sidewalk Dex was on, ten or so minutes into his walk. It was a dark blue car, four-door with good tires for snow, recently changed, if the scuff marks around the hub caps were any indication. He couldn’t see in through the passenger side window because of a pile up of snow, but then it started to roll down and revealed Luke Rossi’s grinning face. “Hey, Dex,” he said, easy. “Need a ride?”

            As he sat in Luke Rossi’s car, already pointed in the direction of the same secluded beach they used to use back in high school, Dex wondered why he was there. He’d heard about Luke, from his parents and JJ. Luke had a job in a city somewhere, maybe Boston or Chicago, they hadn’t known. He got into econ, Dex thought, probably had a business job at a start-up, or something like that. He was probably home just for the holidays. He was still driving around looking for Dex, though, and what did that say about him? Luke probably still hadn’t let himself love anyone for real, just let himself stray back to the familiar, even if he’d long since outgrown it.

            The backseats of Luke’s car folded down to make a huge trunk area. He pressed Dex into them as he mouthed down his neck, careful not to leave a mark, always so careful. Dex felt bad for him, even as he curled his fingers around Luke’s hips, hard enough to bruise. Is this what Luke did? Did he hook up with guys and then pretend to date women, force himself to love them, kiss them? Was he always this careful with it?

            Still, Luke was good at it. Dex stifled his noises in his gloved hand the lower Luke got. He returned to Dex’s mouth, breathing harsh, asked if he could fuck Dex. “Do you have stuff?” Dex asked in response.

            Luke huffed a laugh. “Why? You fucking other guys, Poindexter?” It might have been funny back in freshman year, just from sheer ridiculousness, but now.

            “You aren’t?” Dex shot back, wondering sincerely even if he kept his words harsh.

            Luke didn’t have stuff, so Dex blew him in the back of his car, so high school it hurt. Luke twisted his hands into Dex’s hair, pushing off Nursey’s beanie, and came soon after that. Dex got himself off, left Luke to his luxuriating, and cleaned them both off with some baby wipes that he threw back into the glove department for Luke to deal with later. It was about time he cleaned up after himself. He pulled his jeans back up, grabbed Nursey’s beanie but shoved it into his pocket instead of wearing it. His phone buzzed in his pocket so he pulled it out. JJ had texted ten minutes or so ago, asking where Dex was, and Dex messaged back that he went on a walk, should be back soon.

            A minute ago, Nursey texted him a picture of his laptop, Brooklyn Nine-Nine queued up on the screen. He captioned it with “new eps on hulu get on it bro!!!” and Dex tried to stifle his smile.

            Luke seemed to have recovered at that point. “You want me to drive you back?”

            “Yeah,” Dex said, his eyes stuck on his phone. “Drop me off-”

            “A block away, yeah, I know the deal.” Luke said it like it was a joke and Dex wondered how he could live his life like that.

            When he got out of the car, a street and a half away from his house, he called Bitty. Bitty answered on the third ring. “Dex? Hi, honey, how’s your holiday going?”

            “Do you ever feel like you’re two different people at the same time?”

            Dex heard background noise getting quieter, presumably as Bitty left a room to find a quiet spot. “Dex, are you okay?”

            Dex didn’t know. “Can we pretend like we’re baking?”

            “Um, sure, hun. What’re we making?”

            Dex wanted to laugh, but he thought that if he did, he might start crying instead. “Cherry pie.”

            “Hmm, alright, but it’s not cherry season and you know I don’t use canned.” His voice was so kind and light and Dex wished, more than anything, that he was back at Samwell, in the kitchen with Bitty, listening to Bey and Bitty complain about his day. He wished Nursey was there, chirping him, and Chowder was next to him, laughing, and Holster and Ransom were upstairs wrestling over who got the shower first and Lardo was blaring her emo music as she worked on a piece and-

            “I fucked Luke.”

            Bitty didn’t respond for a few long seconds. In a soft voice, he asked, “Why’d you do that, hun?”

            “I don’t know.”

            Bitty then talked him through a small panic attack, and Dex was at his house, so he couldn’t talk anymore, but he went through the night, dinner with his parents, watching a movie, texting Nursey through the movie, all of it, wondering who he was, now, and what that meant for him and Maine from here on out.

 

*~*~*

 

            With second semester came a muffin kick from Bitty, so the majority of their baking sessions for January consisted of attempting to make every kind of muffin there was. It got so bad, the kitchen was so overrun with muffins, that Bitty allowed Ransom and Holster (and Shitty, during one of his visits) to catapult the extra, stale muffins over at the LAX bro house. It was all fun and games until Holster froze one overnight and broke their front window aiming for the LAX captain’s head. Dex was nominated to fix it, unfortunately, though Jack paid for the supplies, thankfully.

            By the end of the month, Dex was sure there wasn’t any kind of muffin left that he hadn’t made. Yogurt banana nut muffins had to be the most obscure kind of muffin, surely. Still, making them was now familiar, as all the recipes resembled one another, and scooping the batter into the muffin tins was a monotonous, soothing motion that Dex appreciated. He was taking an English course this semester that he was struggling with, and he couldn’t even claim that he was fulfilling a credit, because he’d knocked that out his frog year. But when he’d seen the course, the name of which was long and convoluted but roughly amounted to Afro-Asian Literature and its Relationship with Western Storytelling, he had just instantly wanted to take it. It got into history and linguistics and Dex really did enjoy the subject, but it didn’t come easy to him like math and coding did, and he had to work extra hard just to maintain his understanding.

            He’d already lamented this to Bitty the week prior, though, so as he scooped batter into the tins, he was silent, humming to himself as Bitty did the dishes, pop music playing softly from a speaker next to him. As Dex reached the seventh or so muffin hole, Chowder got home, Nursey and Tango trailing behind him. Tango was nattering on about courses, already thinking of the next semester, because he hadn’t been able to fit all the courses he’d wanted to take into his schedule.

            There was something soothing about Tango’s endless, mostly rhetorical questions, and Dex let that mingle with the atmosphere already in the kitchen as the three of them settled in at the island with their books. “…and Whiskey says he really likes the history elective he’s taking about fashion throughout history- I wonder why they never had courses like that in high school, I’m sure people would’ve gotten into history a lot easier if it overlapped with their interests, do you think they could tie in outside stuff to it, too, to fulfill the requirements of the course?- but it’s not all of history, in Connor’s course, like I thought, because Connor says they’d never be able to fit that in three months of classes- but, oh, do you think they’d ever have a yearlong course? That would be so cool!- but the stuff they do cover is really cool and he lets me read his assigned stuff when he’s done with it and it’s so super cool, I wish I could take his exams, I bet they’re sw’awesome- do you think they’d let me just take it for fun?”

            Chowder probably grinned during the short intake of breath Tango needed to continue, because he loved when the underclassmen used Samwell lingo, but Dex wasn’t facing him so he wasn’t sure.

            “And I was going over the course list last night to see if I could sit in on any classes in my free time and I saw this one about Afro-Asian literature in relation to Western storytelling and it seemed really cool, but I don’t know if it’s about the effects of Western translation on Afro-Asian lit or the storytelling methods and tropes from Africa and Asia and how Western cultures adapted that for themselves or how stories evolve through time and culture, oh, and I’d hope that it was respectful of Afro-Asian lit, because in high school they always favored European cultures, doesn’t that suck?”

            “Yeah, T, it’s almost like the American public school system has an ingrained racism or something,” Nursey drawled. Dex snorted into the muffin batter. “But, yeah, I was looking at that course, too. It did seem pretty chill.”

            “Why didn’t you take it?” Tango asked.

            “It didn’t fit in my schedule.” Nursey probably shrugged as he said it, but for some reason Dex could tell- by the hitch of his voice at the end of it, the way the words pointedly ended instead of just kind of melting into the air- that he was genuinely upset about it.

            “Dex is taking it,” Bitty piped up, and when Dex shot him a look, Bitty merely grinned back. Love had made him sneaky. “Aren’t you, hun?”

            Dex knew his face was flushing simply because now everyone was looking at him. “Yeah,” he mumbled into the tray, but Nursey heard.

            “Really?” The hesitation in Nursey’s consonants told Dex he was excited but trying not to show it, and when he glanced back, Nursey’s bright eyes and forced calm expression confirmed his assumption.

            “Yeah, it’s- it’s really cool, actually.”

            “Could I borrow your readings and shit? Only after you’re done with them, of course.” Nursey looked close to bouncing in his seat with excitement.

            “Sure, dude, if you don’t mind literally being Tango.” Dex grinned at him and Nursey merely rolled his eyes.

            “There’s only one true Tangs,” Nursey said, and Dex laughed at the smile on his face.

            “Thanks, Nursey!” Tango beamed at him and everyone chuckled amiably, and if Dex felt Nursey’s eyes linger on him as he moved on to another tray, he was probably just making it up.

 

*~*~*

 

            The kid Dex sat next to in his comp sci course this semester was part of a frat, and they were throwing a big party one weekend. Dex decided to go, as everyone from the team was busy with one thing or another, and he needed a night to let loose a little. He had to decide his major in mere months, and though he had always planned on computer science, the professor he would potentially use as an advisor had asked him if he was passionate about comp sci at all, and Dex hadn’t known the answer. He knew he could probably get a good job in the field after school ended, and money was a big concern, but he’d never stopped to think if he’d be happy doing it every day for the rest of his life.

            Of course, it was much easier to drink instead of ruminate on that, and that, plus the fact that Bitty had been too busy recently with Jack and procrastinating to make time for baking just with Dex, made Dex’s decision to attend the party easy. He really tried to lose himself in the dancing and drink and laughter. He knew some people there, as Samwell wasn’t a huge school and he’d seen people just on campus or in a class, but no one he spoke to regularly. The one kid he knew who’d invited him wasn’t a friend, and Dex wasn’t even sure if the name he had for the kid was right.

            Even with the anonymity, Dex hadn’t planned on hooking up with anyone that night. The last time he’d slept with anyone, it’d been Luke, a second time over break that he hadn’t told Bitty about, and the time before that it was just a girl from his history class who was fun but not interested in a relationship, and, truly, Dex wasn’t either. He pretended it was because of stress, too much coursework and hockey and big decisions to make room in his life for another person, but he couldn’t lie to himself effectively enough, because he knew what- or who- the real reason was for his isolation.

            That same reason prompted him to react only with discomfort when the girl he had been casually dancing with began to mouth at the collar of his shirt. It was hot and sweaty on the dance floor, so he shed his hoodie earlier in the night, leaving him just in an old t-shirt from some fundraiser back home years ago. The girl seemed to like it, pulling at its waist to get at his collarbone, and Dex winced, grabbing her by the elbow and pulling her away.

            “What’s wrong, stud?” she called, over the music, grinning ridiculously, and she was obviously drunk, so Dex pulled her to the kitchen of the house and sat her down on a chair at the table in there. “Whatcha doin’? Aren’t we gonna fuck?”

            Dex rummaged around in the fridge for a moment- he had forgotten that most frat houses without a Bitty in them had frighteningly little in their fridges- before procuring a water bottle. He turned and handed it to her and she frowned at him. “No, we’re not gonna fuck.”

            The girl pouted. “Why not? I totes wanna feel those arms around me as-”

            “No.” Dex couldn’t help his flush, and the girl smirked even as she unscrewed the water bottle and took a few long sips. “Feeling better?”

            She shrugged. “Whatever. So why aren’t we gonna fuck? You gay?”

            It took Dex a moment to remember that she wasn’t trying to provoke him, simply asking. “No, I’m-”

            “You sure? I’ve kissed a bunch of gay guys, don’t feel bad-”

            “No, I-”

            “Dude, it’s Samwell, there’s like a 25% chance-”

            “No, I’m not- I’m bi, okay? I’m bi.” The girl shrugged again, drinking her water, and Dex realized that this was the first time he’d ever said the actual words. Bi. Bisexual. He was bi. Not- broken, or a fag, or confused. A whole person.

            “That’s chill,” she said, and Dex tried not to laugh in his hysteria. “You dating someone then?”

            Maybe it had been too long since he was in the kitchen with Bitty, or maybe Dex was just drunker than he’d thought, but he said, “It’s complicated,” instead of the truthful, “No.”

            The girl raised her eyebrows. “Spill, dude. I either need sex or good tea when I’m drunk and you’re obviously not providing the first one.”

            “You’re kind of pushy, you know?” The girl just rolled her eyes and made a “go on” gesture with her hand. Dex sighed, crossing his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the wall, facing her. “There’s this- guy. A friend of mine, I guess. We- we kind of had a rocky relationship for a while, but it’s gotten a lot better recently, we’ve gotten better at talking and shit. And I was always attracted to him, you know, ‘cause he’s gorgeous and shit, but as time went on it got more- emotional?

            “Just, he isn’t just a pretty preppy rich kid, like, he’s brilliant, the things he says blow my mind, and he’s so _eloquent_ , you know? He picks his words so carefully because he wants people to listen but at the same time he’s so scared that people won’t, or that they will and won’t care. He’s funny as all hell, even if most of his jokes are at my expense, and he tries so hard at literally everything he does, and he pretends like he doesn’t but he _cares_ so fucking much, and he challenges me, you know? Makes me want to be better, forces me to be better, and he’s just so-so beautiful, I can’t-” Dex took a deep breath, out of air with the confession.

            The girl stared at him a little, probably dazed from the mix of alcohol and too many words at once. After a minute, she said, “It sounds like you’re in love.”

            Dex laughed, bitter. “Yeah.”

            “It also sounds like you’ve needed to say that for a while.”

            Softer, he sighed. “Yeah.” He swallowed hard and shook his head, staring at the floor. “I- I have this friend I usually unload all my crap on, and for the longest time we both had- we both liked these totally unattainable guys and we could complain about it together, but his- he’s dating his now, and I don’t want to bring down his happiness by being bitter about my own shit, you know, but I just- I miss being able to talk about it.”

            The girl got up and stumbled over to him, patting comfortingly at his arm. “I get it. Love sucks.” Dex snorted. “And, hey, if he got his boy, maybe you’ll get yours.”

            Dex smiled, small and sad. “Yeah, no.”

            The girl shrugged. “I tried.” She pushed up onto the tips of her toes and pressed a kiss against the corner of Dex’s mouth, lingering. It wasn’t magic or anything, but it made something go off in Dex’s body and he inhaled sharply.

            His eyes closed, he asked, “You still wanna fuck?”

            The girl laughed, not unkindly. “Oh, kid.” She patted his shoulder again. “It’s not as fun now that you’re in love with someone else. And, anyway, I probably shouldn’t. Chad’ll be upset.”

            “Who’s Chad?” Dex fluttered open his eyes to find the girl staring at him.

            She rolled her eyes. “My boyfriend.”

            “ _What_.”

            She waved her hand dismissively. “It’s fine, he’s a douche.”

            “Then why are you with him?”

            Her eyes went serious. “He’s got, like, amazing skin. I wanna steal his routine before I leave him.”

            Dex wrinkled his nose. “Sounds like a LAX bro.”

            “He does play lacrosse.” She squinted at him then checked him out from head to toe. “Do you play hockey? He complains about them all the time and dat ass tho.”

            “I do play hockey.”

            She checked him out again, a conflicted look on her face, and shook her head. “No, we really can’t.” She sighed. “C’mon, you’re gonna walk me home and I’m going to complain about Chad.”

            That was exactly what they did. Dex had to help her get into her dorm, took her key from her hand before she dropped it, and helped her into her bed. He found aspirin and a bottle of water nearby and left them on her desk near the head of her bed and whispered good night to her sleeping form before going home himself.

 

*~*~*

 

            A few weeks before Valentine’s Day, Dex texted constantly with his dad and less frequently but still decently with JJ trying to make sure that Mom was coming home and eating and sleeping. For years it had been his job to keep his mom healthy when things at work got crazy, Dad busy with his own job and JJ fucking off somewhere else, and last year she had run herself ragged, sleeping for two days after the holiday. Dex wanted to make sure it didn’t happen again, so he tried to police it from four states away. About a week or so before Valentine’s Day, though, she caught on, and he got a message after class one day from her.

_Mom_

_You have such a big heart, honey, and I love you for it, but I’ll be fine. Focus on classes or hockey. Or even one lucky girl for V-Day ;)_

            Dex didn’t know why it had gotten so difficult to lie to his parents, even lying by omission. Back in freshman year, when he was out with Luke most nights, he was able to lie easily, like second nature, and his parents never questioned him. For years after that, when his parents talked about him finding a girlfriend or getting married to a girl and having kids one day, it was a small churn in his chest, hollowed just a bit, but it didn’t consume him. As time went on, his parents not knowing only got worse, and he didn’t know why.

            It wasn’t like he was gay. Lord knew Bitty had it worse, because he didn’t like women at all, the things his parents said weren’t even half true. Why couldn’t Dex be content with halves? Why couldn’t Dex just stifle the other side of himself? He’d learned to love boys quietly, learned to look and dart his eyes away before they could be caught, learned to hide between expectations with ease. He’d done it nearly all his life and suddenly he couldn’t manage it anymore. He felt like he’d lost something, lost a fight, felt like he’d been punched every time his mother said “girlfriend” and didn’t add an “or” after it.

            Unfortunately, the weekend his mother found out about his meddling was the same weekend the Falconers played the Bruins, so Bitty was in Boston with Shitty and Lardo, cheering Jack on in person. Dex had the kitchen to himself, but it felt just as hollow as his chest without Bitty’s presence. Still, he tried to make it work, started the recipe for a chocolate silk pie with ringing in his ears. He knew the recipe by heart, at least for the dough, but he messed it up twice before he relented and pulled out Bitty’s recipe book, covered in dust.

            He managed it the third time and then started on the filling, but the motions didn’t get out the energy in his palms. It just felt monotonous. He wanted something different, wanted a fight. He wanted to hurt, split his knuckles on someone’s jawline, feel his own nose break under the responding hit. He wanted blood in his mouth, burning lungs from trying to breathe through the stickiness on his face, wanted someone to hurt him until all he could feel was pain and dizziness and oblivion.

            He abandoned the filling in favor of returning to the dough, trying to beat out the feeling into it, but he overworked it and he knew if he put it into the oven it would just end up crumbling in his hands, and he couldn’t handle anything else doing that. He tried holding himself up with the countertop but found even that too much of a struggle, so he let himself slide down to the floor and held his head between his knees for a bit. He was always an anxious kid, worked himself up too easily, and his dad always told him to just hold his head between his knees and focus on breathing for a bit, and then everything would be fine.

            There were times when Dex flirted, however briefly, with the idea of telling his parents he was- bi. At family parties, whenever one of his uncles would go off on rants about gay marriage or trans bathroom rights, his dad wouldn’t agree, wouldn’t say anything. His mom liked Ellen just fine, but Dex couldn’t tell if it was in spite of her sexuality or not. Dex didn’t think they minded queer people, as long as it didn’t affect them in any way, and maybe Dex didn’t have to affect them, either. He wasn’t gay, he didn’t have to end up with a man, and did he really have to tell them anything if he did marry a woman one day? What would telling them accomplish? Nothing. All it would do would sacrifice their comfort for Dex’s own.

            He pulled himself from the floor slowly, careful with his adrenaline flooded body. He didn’t feel better, maybe he even felt worse. He still wanted to hit something, have someone hit him, forget. Miraculously, Nursey chose this moment to walk into the kitchen, bag slung casually over one shoulder, saying, “Hey, could I see your readings from the Afro-Asian lit class?”, his expression passive before his eyes hit Dex, and it felt like a physical hit. His eyes went wide, the relaxation in his posture seeping out until he was at his full height, physique as large and imposing as Dex’s own. Nursey could do damage, if anyone ever managed to get him to a point of inflicting it.

            “Dex-”

            “Fuck off,” Dex said, then realized he couldn’t let himself do this, couldn’t force Nursey to explode on him simply because he needed it. “Fuck- just, don’t, okay, you need to- go. I need to-” Dex had to leave, he couldn’t be here where he was going to ruin everything he’d worked for, Nursey’s trust and comfort gone with a few angry words. He turned to grab his bag from the kitchen island and book it, but Nursey was next to him in a moment, his hand closing around Dex’s bicep, and Dex turned and swung, blindly. He’d had enough practice at being ambushed that he should have connected with Nursey’s jaw easily, but he still had enough control to miss.

            Nursey stared at him, his hands up now in a surrender, his eyes wide and frightened, actually scared that Dex was going to hurt him, and Dex took quick steps backwards until his back hit the countertop. Maybe some things people never outgrew, maybe he’d always be the person he’d been raised to be, maybe he’d always be alone, maybe he deserved it, maybe-maybe-maybe-

            “Dex.”

            “I’m sorry,” he said, and he only meant to say it once but it just kept coming out between his hitched breaths and he didn’t know how to stop it, didn’t know how many things he had to apologize for. To Nursey, maybe an infinite number. Dex found his way back to the floor, fingers gripping at his hair, now so much longer than it’d been when he first stepped foot into this kitchen. Nursey didn’t approach him again but he sat down, too, a few feet away.

            It was a few minutes before Dex started registering the sounds around him again. Wind rustling against the walls of the Haus, squeaky floorboards where Ransom was upstairs, the rustle of Dex’s flannel as his fingers curled and uncurled in it. A soft voice, saying, “…a fearful trill of things unknown, but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill, for the caged bird sings of freedom.”

            Dex’s eyes focused enough to meet Nursey’s. Nursey’s voice stopped at that instant, but it didn’t feel abrupt. “What-” his voice scratched over the word, and he coughed and continued, “-what is that?”

            Nursey said, “A poem I know. I didn’t know what to say.”

            Dex nodded. “Sorry.”

            “Don’t be, dude, we all-” Nursey winced slightly. “I understand, I mean. It’s not your fault.” Dex didn’t know what to say to that, so he stared back, quiet. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

            “Not really.” Nursey nodded like he’d expected it, and it didn’t make Dex want to be unexpected, but- “Have you ever-” He swallowed the tears he felt fighting him, even though his cheeks were already wet. “Have you ever wanted to tell someone something even though you know it would only make them feel worse?”

            Nursey stared at him for a few moments. “How would it make you feel?”

            Dex said, “I don’t know. Better than this, hopefully.”

            Nursey smiled, a little, at that, but it didn’t have the meaning of smile. “Hopefully.”

            At Samwell, he didn’t have to stifle himself, and maybe that had forced him to unlearn his instincts. He couldn’t lie anymore because he’d learned how awesome it was to tell the truth. In realizing that, he almost confessed to Nursey right there, but for the same reason he later responded to his mother with a simple _Will do :)_ , Dex stayed silent. He threw out the ruined pie dough and he and Nursey ate the chocolate filling sitting on the couch watching romantic comedies on TV, airing nonstop during the lead up to Valentine’s Day, and it was okay, momentarily.

 

*~*~*

 

            Nursey’s roommate their softie year was mostly a dick, so much of the time he was occupying his and Nursey’s room with his girlfriend, having loud, disturbing sex. Because of this, Nursey had to be elsewhere for a majority of his week, and as Dex was living in the dorm directly opposite Nursey’s own, much of this free time was spent in Dex’s dorm. He’d given Nursey a key after the fourth or fifth time he came home to find Nursey sitting on the ground outside his door, so now Dex came home a lot to Nursey sitting on his bed or at his desk, watching something or reading or doing homework.

            He didn’t mind it, much. He liked having Nursey in his space, with his pencil tapping and poetic mumblings as he worked. Nursey was also learned in Dex’s quirks, somehow, and knew when to pull Dex away from the code he was working on with a stupid question that led to a stupider debate that distracted Dex and gave him an outlet for his excess energy before he went back to his work. Like;

            “If sinks weren’t invented until the 18th century, and Hogwarts was built in the 900s, how did Slytherin put a snake on a sink pipe?”

            Dex turned in his chair to regard Nursey with an incredulous look. “What?”

            “I’m just saying, with all the thought JK put into the story, I feel like she should’ve noticed that. The entire resolution of book two relies on a ten-thousand year-old engraving on a three-hundred year-old pipe. Continuity’s important, Dexy-do.”

            Dex blinked at him. “Why is this-” He cut himself off, shaking his head. “Okay, but with that logic, there would have been renovations as indoor plumbing became a thing, right? So, whatever was there originally, it was probably built over during the change-”

            “So you agree, it’s impossible, I just dismantled the entire Harry Potter series-”

            “No, _shut up_ , listen. So, like, Salazar probably planned in the case that the other founders tried to cover it up, right? He knew his big secret snake chamber wasn’t cool with the others, so he probably infused magic in it that would adapt to being covered or changed, even by incredibly powerful magic, and the magic used to build the bathroom probably wasn’t that strong, so it probably just simply changed to fit its surroundings.”

            Nursey looked at him for a moment and then started cracking up. “ _Big secret snake chamber_ ,” he muttered through his giggles. Dex huffed and shook his head, looking upwards for some kind of help. “Dude, do you think Slytherin called his dick The Basilisk?”

            Dex couldn’t help but laugh at that one. “Oh my God, shut up.” Then he snorted to himself. “Gryffindor totally called his the Sword.”

            “Godric’s Sword, oh my god.” Nursey snickered, falling over with his laughter, his head landing on Dex’s pillow. Dex watched him laugh, cheek pressed to where Dex’s had been just that morning. He liked Nursey in his bed, liked how he looked against the sheets, and he was sure he could make him feel good if only given the chance. But he was also sure he wouldn’t be given it, the idea almost laughable if it didn’t hurt him so much. Nursey smiled over at him, lazy and honest. “So how’s the code coming?”

            Dex hummed, glancing back at it. It still wasn’t doing what he wanted it to, and if it kept it up long enough, he’d just give up and rewrite the whole thing. “Not great,” he said, and loathed to return to it, though he knew he couldn’t avoid it forever. He tried to get things done ahead of time, so it wasn’t due for another week or so, but he still wanted to finish it tonight so he wouldn’t have to think about it anymore.

            Nursey said, “Don’t get mad or anything, but-”

            “That’s a great way to start an argument,” Dex said, a smirk pulling at his lips.

            Nursey flapped his hand at Dex and said, “Shut up.” Dex laughed and Nursey ignored him “Don’t get mad, but it seems like you haven’t really been enjoying the whole coding thing lately. Last year, you at least didn’t dread doing it.”

            Momentarily, Dex wondered what it meant that Nursey was monitoring his happiness, but told himself that it was what friends did, worry about each other. “Yeah,” he said, sighing. “I don’t know. When I was a kid, I loved taking apart computers and seeing how they worked and code was like this whole other world that I could unlock just by knowing the language. Like learning how to read again, you know?” Dex waited for Nursey to nod before continuing, “But for the past couple of months I just haven’t had the same feeling about it as I used to. And my advisor- my professor, but if I choose comp sci as my major, he’d be my advisor- he asked me about it, too, and I didn’t know what to say.”

            “Why do you want to do computer science?” Nursey asked, genuine interest in his expression.

            Dex fidgeted in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. He said, “I don’t know. I know I can get a job in that field after college is over and make good money.” He uncrossed and re-crossed his arms, feeling defensive. "I don’t know, why do you want to major in English?”

            A light turned on in Nursey’s eyes that Dex had only seen a few times before. “Dude, literature is everything to me. You can touch on emotions and issues across the world just by using words, like, they’re just symbols until you give them meaning and the power in that is- overwhelming. I love it, even when I’m reading some dense old white dude’s work riddled with offensive, idiotic conclusions, it gives me an understanding I can use to dismantle arguments or just rant for a while. I can go to another country, another world, with words, and I can experience every kind of love there is like I’m living it, I- I love it. And I’ve never been bored with it, not yet, at least.”

            There was a passion in Nursey’s whole body- his gesturing hands, bright eyes, explosive tongue- that Dex didn’t know if he’d ever felt. He understood, in that moment, what Nursey meant, because he felt almost like he could taste Nursey’s adoration for his trade in the words he used, the way he said them. And Dex couldn’t deny how amazing that was, sure, but he didn’t feel the same way about literature that Nursey did. Still, it inspired him, gave him something tangible to look for. All Dex needed to do was find his version of Nursey’s literature, something he loved and never tired of doing.

            Dex nodded. “Alright,” he said. “Thanks.”

            Nursey quirked an eyebrow at him but didn’t ask anything more. He shook his head and stood from Dex’s bed, saying, “C’mon, Bitty texted a few minutes ago that he made pie, and I want some before the taddies get to it.”

 

*~*~*

 

            In late March, Samwell got a snowstorm that cancelled classes in advance, giving them a four day weekend. Even though the dorms were probably less likely to lose power, Dex and Nursey ended up going to the Haus before the storm hit for a few-day sleepover. They “borrowed” one of the gear carts from Faber and loaded it up with blankets, sleeping bags, and extra clothes, and wheeled it over to the Haus. The second they got in the door, Holster shoved liquor into their hands even though it was still early in the afternoon. They spent the first day drinking and playing video games and eating Bitty’s pie.

            The snow started as soon as it got dark, coming down heavy and fast and sticking instantly. They decided to play manhunt and grabbed flashlights and took to the street, running up and down the row of frat houses hiding from one another. It was fun, with cold fingers and hard snowballs and lots of laughing tackles, but they eventually had to pack it in when Ransom nearly got citizen-arrested by the basketball frat for sneaking around in their backyard.

            Lardo and Bitty, both of them too cold to join the game, were waiting for them in the Haus with homemade hot chocolate that warmed them up instantly from their game. They attempted to watch a movie after that, but they were all so tired from running around in the snow that they hardly made it half an hour in before they were heading off to bed. Nursey and Dex bunked in Chowder’s room on a pile of blankets and sleeping bags, as all three of them couldn’t fit in the bed together and they knew picking only one of them would upset C. It was basically a make-shift bed, almost nest-like, and though they had their own blankets on top, it was scarily like sharing a bed, so much so that Dex stayed up much later than he should’ve tricking himself into thinking he could feel the heat from Nursey’s body against his own.

            In the morning, Bitty made a big breakfast, and Dex didn’t wake up early enough to help him make it, but after lunch or so, the snow still piling up steadily outside, Dex and Bitty made bread and then started a cake, chocolate with vanilla frosting, except they were fancier than just that because it was Bitty’s recipe, but Dex thought he got the gist. The rest of the team was outside, building a snow bunny as big as Lardo, leaving Dex and Bitty alone in the quiet of the kitchen.

            As he stirred the flour mixture, sitting on the island as Bitty added the wet ingredients to the mixing bowl, Dex said, soft, “I think I’m going to tell the team.”

            Bitty looked up, glancing back at Dex, his eyebrows high. He looked away quickly, keeping his tone level as he said, “Oh?”

            “I mean, I didn’t pointedly not tell them,” Dex said, realizing how convoluted it sounded as it left his lips. “I just- not telling my p-” Dex, from the little of Bitty’s face he could see, watched as Bitty’s expression shuttered, and cut himself off. “I just want to tell someone, you know? Have one family know.”

            Bitty turned his head to offer a big smile. “You know the boys are gonna love you no matter what, so don’t you worry a bit about that, alright?”

            Dex smiled, small, back. “I know.” He watched Bitty putter around for a few more seconds and then cleared his throat. “I thought I could start with you.”

            Bitty turned around completely at that, surprise visible in his wide eyes. “Me?”

            “I know you- know. But I’ve never said the actual words to you. So. Um.” He took a deep breath. “I’m bi.”

            Bitty’s smile got impossibly wider. “Thank you for trusting me with that, hun.”

            Dex felt a little silly, but he also felt lighter, more content, just by saying those two words.

            The rest of the team came tumbling back into the Haus, loud and laughing, heading straight for the kitchen for pastries, and Dex decided to wait a little bit before telling the rest of the them, but even still, he couldn’t get the smile off his face for the rest of the snow day.

 

*~*~*

 

            After their next home game, coming off a win that everyone could feel good about, Dex was tired, but in the satisfying way where he was winding down from adrenaline and excitement and the feeling that he’d accomplished something. He showered quickly, ready to get back to his dorm and sleep for hours. He didn’t have class in the morning, as it was Sunday, and he wasn’t sure whether or not Bitty would wake up to make a big team breakfast, since he was probably going to Skype with Jack well into the night and be too tired to wake up early, so Dex knew he had a nice long sleep ahead of him.

            He pulled on his post-game clothes, soft things, like old sweatpants and a shirt he’d stolen from Chowder, one of the Sharks ones Dex was sure Chowder lost on purpose so he could spread the Sharks spirit. It was obviously older than some of the other ones, thinner and more worn, and Chowder was slightly smaller than Dex in height and stature, meaning it pulled tight across his shoulders in a way that almost felt like a hug. He pulled a hoodie over that, something he didn’t know who originally had owned it but knew he came home with it after a kegster once and no one ever asked after it, so. He grabbed a coat and left, a quick parting towards the rest of the team, half of which was probably going to go home like Dex and sleep it off, the rest going off to drink or party or pick up to get out the leftover energy from the game.

            He shouldered his bag and headed for the exit, passed the rink where the spectators let out. Usually everyone was gone by the time the players left the locker room unless someone was waiting for one of them, but there were a handful of people waiting near the exit of Faber, and Dex scanned them lazily, looked away, and then realized who he’d just seen. Luke was leaning against the wall next to the door, fiddling with his phone, wearing a plain colored button up and holding a jacket in his hand, wrinkled between his fingers.

            Seeing him like that made Dex flash back to high school, when Luke would lean against his car in the parking lot, waiting for Dex to get there, ostensibly to go to practice or hang out. Dex always thought that it made Luke seem like a model or the love interest in a high school movie, casually leaning, jacket thrown over his shoulder or in his hands, torso elongated, and expression passive. And when he’d looked up, his eyes hitting Dex’s, and he smiled, like it was all for Dex, like all his attention was Dex’s, it was breathtaking, and Dex had felt special for maybe the first time in his life.

            Luke looked up then, his eyes hitting Dex, and everything that had happened since high school was suddenly gone. Dex felt- he felt like he was alone and Luke was his only escape, his only chance to be with someone else and not have to hide inside himself. So when Luke smiled, Dex walked towards him, helpless. “What are you doing here?” he asked, fingers playing at the strap of his bag.

            “I’m on my way to Albany,” Luke said, pushing off the wall with a casual elegance. “Saw there was a Cornell-Samwell game, so I thought I’d come support my old teammates and break up the driving time.”

            Luke must have lived in Boston then, even though there would be no reason to stop in Samwell on the way from Boston to Albany, as it was hardly a three hour drive. Dex didn’t touch that, though. “Don’t you want to go hang out with them?” he asked instead, nodding his chin towards where the Cornell team was filtering out of the rink.

            Luke grinned and threw an arm around Dex’s shoulders, even though Dex had gotten taller than him sometime after his sophomore year. The full intensity of his expression was focused on Dex in that moment, way too close not to burn at the feeling. He said, like it was a privilege only few were afforded, “You’re my old teammate, too, bro.”

            Dex only nodded, dazed. Despite how the attention made him feel, he knew there were only so many things Luke could want from him, so he said, “Do you want to go hang out in my dorm?”

            Luke hesitated. “Won’t your roommate mind? It’s pretty late, wouldn’t want to disturb him.” Dex wondered why they had to keep up the pageantry even when no one else was around, but he knew the answer, really, because things like this could travel far easier than others.

            Dex shook his head, passive. “I have a single.”

            Luke grinned, and Dex felt like he had been tricked into the wolf’s belly. “Let’s go, then.”

            Some things were easier to fall back into than others. Dex let Luke push and take the way he’d been raised to, enjoyed it well enough. There was a familiarity in Luke. He’d spent years learning what Luke liked, and Luke had spent the same years in kind. Luke knew how to make him feel good, and Dex knew how to let himself enjoy things despite whatever was going on in his mind. There was a physicality to it that Dex assumed wasn’t the kind of masculinity he’d been raised to appreciate, but he still thought it an impressive feat that even when his mind raced with impossibilities and choking habits, Luke could make his body ache and react and reach for him, subconscious and muscle memory working in tandem.

           But there was still a hollowness in it. There was the pleasure of presses and caresses that he registered as there but then it ended and that was it, there was no emotional connection that made him thrilled to get the chance to touch or the desire to worship more than necessary, and Dex’s younger self would have taken that as safety. He hadn’t loved Luke because he knew better, had been taught better. With his high school girlfriends, there’d been more behind the act than just the release. It had been something to share, revel in, enjoy beyond the physical. He hadn’t ever had that with a man, and a part of him had assumed that’s just how it was. Now, when he’d loved someone, loved a man, in a way that made his heart race with a look or brighten his day with a handful of pleasant words, sex with Luke only felt like what it was; empty.

            Afterwards, panting and filled with the bone-deep exhaustion that came with going for too long without a rest, Dex felt Luke mutter something about a hotel into his shoulder, and Dex told him to stay even though they’d never done that before. He’d always had to get back home by midnight, or someone would have found them if they’d stayed there, resting, too long. Luke didn’t seem to mind, just fell asleep between one breath and the next, his body shoved against the wall, hardly touching Dex’s even in the small twin bed. Dex rolled onto his side, back to Luke, and tried to figure out how to tell Luke he wasn’t the kind of person who could do this anymore.

            In the morning, Dex’s shade was pulled down over the window, so no sunlight broke in to wake them up. They slept in. The alerts on Dex’s phone about Bitty making team breakfast were ignored, because he’d forgotten to plug his phone in the night before. It was nearly ten when a key fit into the lock and his dorm door was pushed open, Nursey’s bright voice greeting, “Rise and shine, Dexington!” Dex blinked his eyes open to see Nursey standing in the doorway, backlit from the hall in an ethereal way, and he blearily thought that Nursey was an angel, here to bring a glorious message of hope. Half awake, Dex watched as Nursey’s expression changed from delighted to- not quite horrified but surprised in a very unpleasant way- as his eyes caught on Luke’s shirtless back. The word “Fuck,” dropped from Nursey’s mouth, heavy, and it felt like it had fallen onto Dex’s chest to try and keep him from breathing.

            “Shit, Nursey-”

            “No, fuck, sorry, I should’ve-” Nursey shook his head. “Sorry,” he said, and then shut the door and left. Dex sucked in a quick breath and scrambled to get out of bed and find clothes. Luke, fully alert with what had transpired, watched Dex with wary eyes. They’d never talked about what they would’ve done if they were caught. Dex had thought about it, sometimes, when he’d wanted to hurt. If it had been one of their friends, Dex assumed that high school would have been hell, or worse than it was. Luke would’ve gone off to college within the year, no matter what, but Dex would’ve been stuck in it, in hell, for years. If it was JJ who found them, Dex thought that he might hit Luke, because that was the only way JJ really knew how to deal with emotions, aside from drinking them away. If it was Dex’s parents- Dex didn’t know what they would’ve done, and his imagination touched on everything from violence to grief and never was stupid enough to think of happy endings.

            The idea played behind Luke’s eyes as Dex grabbed for his clothes, and Dex didn’t know how to explain to him that it wasn’t the ruin it would’ve been back home. “He isn’t- he’s fine with this, okay? He doesn’t care, he was just surprised, I haven’t told him I’m-” Dex stopped himself, as there were some things he didn’t have to explain to Luke, and he hated himself for loving that, despite it all.

            Luke relaxed, however minutely, at Dex’s words. He shrugged, feigning casual. “Alright.”

            Dex, who in his haste could not manage to do up the button on his jeans, huffed, frustrated, and ripped his hands from his waist. “Fuck, Luke, we can’t do this anymore,” he said, like it was racing to get out of him, and Dex’s heart pounded.

            Luke looked up, a hint of a smirk in his expression, and it was hot, fuck. “And why not?” he asked, drawled with the confidence of someone who’d never been rejected, but he’d never truly been himself, either, had he? He was the same cocky fuck he was in high school, layered over a core of insecurity and hatred, and Dex knew Luke down to the soft hairs on his thighs and the tender skin of his inner wrist. He knew who he was, had known since he was a freshman giving everything he could to the one person who looked at him for more than a few seconds, because Luke was still the same senior who would take whatever he could, maybe he always would be. But Dex wasn’t fourteen anymore, and he’d learned things like love and acceptance in ways Luke would never be able to understand.

            Desperate to make him see it, Dex asked, “Why are you even here, Luke?”

            Luke huffed. “I told you, I was on my way to Albany-”

            “Why would you need to stop at Samwell on the way, Luke, it’s hardly a three hour drive?” Dex wanted to hear him say it, selfishly, wanted Luke to admit it. They’d only spoken in innuendos, always “hang out” instead of “fuck”, never spoke about it outside of sex, hardly spoke of it during sex either, and he knew it would hurt Luke to speak the words but Dex wanted them anyway.

            “I’d been coming off a few hard days at work,” Luke said sensibly, and Dex hated it.

            He tried another route. “What- what are you doing right now, huh? Your life is in Boston, I’m not a part of it anymore. You have a job and-and things adults do, and-” Dex realized a way to go about it, and asked, “Why are you going to Albany?”

            Luke hesitated and Dex knew, in that moment, that he’d found the right avenue to explain. Slowly, Luke said, “My girlfriend’s parents live there.” He pushed out his chin, daring Dex to say something. “I couldn’t fly out with her because of work, so I’m getting there a few days late.” He said it with half self-awareness and half stubborn ignorance, a mix that Dex detested.

            Dex shook his head, victorious but not triumphant. “That’s why we can’t do this anymore, fuck.” Dex pulled at his own hair, wanting to pace with his frustration. Desperate and grieving, he asked, “How do you do that? How have you pretended for so long?” He pulled at his hair and it slipped from his fingers, his arms out wide, open, incredulous and frustrated and exhausted with the whole thing. “I-I haven’t been doing it nearly as long as you and I’m so tired, Luke, aren’t you tired?”

            Luke’s expression went hard, his lips a firm line with no quirk in the corners, his good humor gone. Coldly, he said, “I don’t know what you mean,” and Dex couldn’t take it, he couldn’t do it anymore, he-

            “You’re gay, Luke! You’re fucking gay!” He was panting with it, everything from the past six years crashing down on him, and he was flooded with adrenaline, like the last minutes of third period, leading by one, trying to keep the other team from getting anywhere near Chowder, willing to give his everything for just one win.

            Luke shot out of the bed at his words, fury in every movement, right up to Dex, his cold eyes so close to Dex’s anger. “I am not g- I’m not a _fag_ ,” he said, and winced even as he said it. They’d never redressed after last night, and the image of Luke adamantly denying it while the evidence was bruised into his skin wasn’t humorous. It just made Dex overwhelmingly sad.

            “I am,” Dex responded, quiet, adrenaline leaving him in one breath. “I’ve fucked guys, been fucked by them, dated them even. I’m in love with a boy. I am a fag, queer, fairy, whatever.” Dex swallowed around the tightness in his throat and Luke stared at him, awed and frightened and disbelieving. “Okay? Okay, so we can’t- we can’t do this anymore because we’re not- I’m not where you are anymore. And I can’t- I can’t keep coming back here with you.”

            Luke kept staring, dazed for a few moments, and then scoffed, setting his jaw tight, looking off to the side. “You’re not better than me, Poindexter.”

            Dex smiled, a small, fragile, devastating thing. “No,” he said, “but I’m happier.”

            Dex watched Luke gather his things and leave, pulling his wrinkled button up straight, a futile act. When he’d left, Dex finished putting on his clothes, grabbed his dead phone, and made his way to the Haus, needing to bake and talk and maybe hug, too. The sidewalks were lined with snow on either side and he attempted to be careful as he walked, not slip on any ice, but his mind was on other things. Nursey’s expression when he’d seen Luke, Luke’s eyes when he’d left filled with a painful mix of resignation and anger, what Bitty might let him bake when he got to the Haus.

            He thankfully made it there without falling, pulling off his outer-clothes as he walked into the kitchen, saying, “Bitty, I-”

            The kitchen was filled with dishes, obviously the aftermath of a team breakfast, but the team was gone. The only ones in the room were Bitty, at the sink, scrubbing furiously at a bacon pan, and Nursey, sitting at the kitchen island with his hands curled into one another, entire body buzzing with emotion. Dex stopped in his spot, staring at Nursey, and Nursey’s eyes were less horrified now, still just as surprised, and maybe guilty, too.

            “Dex, honey, is everything okay?” Bitty turned, his hands full of suds, and he frowned at Dex, his eyes following Dex’s to Nursey, and he looked back and forth between them. “Did something happen?”

            “I-” Dex swallowed and shook his head, looking away from Nursey. “I saw Luke last night.”

            Bitty’s eyes got rounder when he was shocked and he took off his dish gloves to turn around and put his hands on his hips. “I thought we talked about that-” He shook his head. “Never mind. How did it happen?”

            “He was at the game last night. He-” Dex’s breath hitched on what might have been a strangled laugh. “-he was on his way to Albany to meet his girlfriend’s parents.”

            “Oh, Lord. Sit down, hun, lemme get you a piece of pie.” Bitty ushered him to a stool at the island, right next to Nursey.

            Nursey glanced at him, then said, quiet, “So that guy was-”

            “Luke.” Dex played with the cuff on his hoodie. “We know each other from high school.”

            “And he’s your-” Nursey stopped, and Dex ducked his head.

            “Nothing, really.”

            “Didn’t look like nothing, Poindickster.” Nursey’s voice almost reached a chirping tone and Dex managed a small laugh.

            “We- we hooked up back when we were in school together, and then sometimes after that. We were friends, but- it wasn’t like he was my anything.”

            “Booty-call, nice,” Nursey said, and Dex snorted. He snuck a look at Nursey and in the seconds between when he looked and Nursey realized he was looking, the expression on Nursey’s face wasn’t tilted corners of lips and crinkles next to his eyes, a joking expression, but a tight-lipped frown and wrinkled forehead, hurt somehow. Dex wanted to ask, but Bitty arrived with the pie and in the next second, Nursey’s face was calm again.

            “So what happened?” Bitty leaned his elbows on the island, frowning seriously.

            “Do you want the dirty details, or-?” Dex managed a grin at Bitty’s exasperated sigh.

            Bitty reached out and hit at Dex’s arm. “William Poindexter, you be good.”

            “He stayed over and Nursey came in and woke us up,” Dex started before taking a bite of his pie.

            Bitty winced. “Well, you did say you wanted to come out.”

            Dex rolled his eyes as he swallowed. “Not exactly what I had in mind.” He turned momentarily to Nursey, “By the bye, I’m bi,” and then turned back to Bitty as Nursey laughed. “We started talking after Nursey left and I told him I couldn’t keep doing this and he got angry and left and then I came here.” Dex took another bite of pie. It was blueberry, which wasn’t his favorite, but it still made everything feel better.

            “Do you think that’s the end of it? He won’t be showing up anymore?”

            Dex nodded, swallowed, and said, “I think so.”

            “Well, that’s good.” Bitty patted his hand. “Though I do feel bad for the boy, feeling like he has to pretend like that.” Dex felt the same empathy he could see in Bitty’s wide brown eyes, but he knew there wasn’t much he could do.

            “I know, I do too, but I can’t-” Dex shook his head. Every time he saw Luke, he just felt empty for a while afterwards, and he didn’t want to feel like that anymore.

            “No, no, it’s not your job to fix him, honey. You have to do what’s best for you.” Bitty stood and made his way back to the sink, saying, “You’ve made a lot of progress since high school and you can’t just let him undo all that.” Bitty had gotten a lot better at advice, or more introspective advice, since dating Jack, and Dex couldn’t tell if it was Jack’s therapy poking in or if being in a healthy relationship had made Bitty wiser somehow through love, but Dex appreciated it either way.

            “I mean, I didn’t know about this stuff,” Nursey said, waving his hand to encompass everything they were discussing, “but you’ve definitely made a bunch of progress since coming here. You know, in not being a dick.”

            “Fuck you,” Dex said, around a bite of pie, but he smiled at Nursey’s responding laugh. He did feel like he’d become a different person, a better person, since coming to Samwell, and he hoped that he wouldn’t stop becoming better for a long time yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew, that was a lot wasn't it? Poor Dex, poor Luke, poor Nursey.  
> Anywho, if you want more angst, check back in soon! I adored the response to the first chapter and hope to continue posting regularly. As I've mentioned, everything has already been written, just needs to be edited, and then it should be up too.  
> If you enjoyed this chapter, please leave a comment or a kudo if you'd like. It never fails to make me happy :)


	3. step three - don't let it burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ma danced with him until the song ended, breathless with laughter and movement, and patted at his arm comfortingly. “You’ve got your father’s dance moves.”  
> “I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not,” Dex said, and his dad called an indignant, “Hey!” from the counter where he was cutting vegetables.  
> Ma laughed and shook her head. “It’s a compliment. If they won me, you’ll find yourself a nice girl in no time.”  
> *  
> He’d read in a book once that there was no longer distance than time, but Dex wondered if maybe it wasn’t time but difference.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! This chapter is a bit sadder than the other ones, for which I'm sorry. Another time jump, now to the summer between Dex's softie and junior years.  
> Warnings for this chapter include closeted character, semi-forced outing, violence (a fist fight), and homophobia (f-slur).  
> I hope y'all enjoy!

           Following the seniors’ graduation, Dex and Nursey moved their stuff into Lardo’s old room. They were the last ones left in the Haus, Bitty already in Providence with Jack- though he’d left pies for them down in the kitchen before he left- and the seniors were in Boston, Ransom and Holster in their apartment and Lardo probably chilling on the couch in the share house Shitty was staying in over the summer. Chowder got a flight back a few days early to be there for his parents’ twentieth wedding anniversary. Whiskey left early one day without saying goodbye aside from the group chat, and Tango was currently on a flight back to Las Vegas.

            The Haus was never quiet, so it creaked and moaned as Dex and Nursey moved their boxes up to the room. They’d moved Nursey’s mattress frame in that morning, and since it was so hot, they were waiting until they got back to bring the mattress itself up, too. The bed left in the room from Lardo and Shitty before her was lofted, like one half of a bunk bed, and instead of attaching the second bed part that was left in the basement years ago and rotted to shit, they decided to just get a bed to fill the part of the room that used to be a closet. Shitty was shaky on the details, but he said that during Johnson’s frog year, someone did something with tequila and a sledgehammer, and the closet became a weird alcove in the room. Shitty and Lardo both kept their clothes there, but Dex and Nursey agreed to use the space under Dex’s bed for a closet and give Nursey his own space on the other side of the room.

            Dex thought the layout was best, as they’d still be able to have their own space in the room even if they were both in there together. Some things they had come to a détente about. They had agreed that the desk would remain neat unless Nursey had a writing binge, and then he had two days following it to clean it up before Dex threw everything out. Dex was not allowed to stomp around early in the morning before his run and always had to pick up his things from the floor to ensure Nursey lived to graduation. Other things, like shower times and sleeping schedules, were easy, as they complemented each other in a lot of ways. Dex liked morning showers, while Nursey liked nighttime ones, and they both went to sleep late and woke early, and took intermittent naps if they could. Despite his earlier panic, Dex thought that, maybe, this could work out.

            The prospect of sharing a room with Nursey had been originally horrifying. Dex was certain he would explode before graduation, being around Nursey so often, living in one another’s pockets. He didn’t think they’d be bad roommates, because they’d built a friendship based on chirping and pretending like they didn’t know each other as well as they did, and any time they hung out in Dex’s room together or roomed on roadies, Dex liked it just fine. The problem was that, since the whole blow up with Luke, Dex hadn’t managed to hook up or date anyone without wishing he was with Nursey instead, which left him frustrated and even more hopelessly in love with the guy, which was going to be torture when they would be together all day every day for the next two years.

            “Looks good,” Nursey said, putting the last box down next to his mattress frame. Dex surveyed the room with him. He still had to put up some shelves for all of Nursey’s books, and he definitely wanted to fix the flooring over near the door because he was sure Nursey would be tripping on the one loose plank for months if he didn’t, but he did agree that the room looked good. They’d repainted, a softer green color that Dex secretly thought complemented Nursey’s eyes- God, he was really fucked wasn’t he?- and the room felt brighter, like a new beginning.

            “I think it’ll be good,” Dex said, meaning the room and everything else.

            Nursey grinned at him, because he always understood what Dex meant, even if Dex didn’t want him to. “We’re gonna be sw’awesome roomies, bro.”

            Dex rolled his eyes but acquiesced, “We probably won’t kill each other.”

            “Oh, come on,” Nursey said, laughing. He took a step closer and Dex could see where the heat was getting to him, sweat dripping down his forehead and coming to rest on his nose. Was it completely mental that Dex wanted to lick it off? “We argue, but deep down we love each other, don’t we?” Nursey asked it with his joking tone, and Dex meant to respond in kind, but his voice couldn’t quite manage it.

            “Yeah,” he said, soft, “we do.”

            Nursey’s cheeky grin faltered and he blinked at Dex. His eyes widened and Dex felt his heart race in his chest. He breathed out, “Dex-” and probably would have said more if Dex’s phone hadn’t gone off.

            JJ was on the other line, letting Dex know that he was nearby. JJ was bringing down some of Dex’s things to have in the Haus, like his regular twin-size bedspread as he wouldn’t be in the extra-long dorm ones anymore, and some raw materials and supplies for the shelves. Dex wouldn’t be putting them up today, probably would wait until August, but he didn’t want to have to worry about it when his junior year started. Dex told JJ he’d meet him out front and then hung up, looking back at Nursey. The moment had passed, but it had left touches on Nursey’s face that Dex was sure were mirrored on his own.

            “Have a good summer, Nursey,” Dex said. Nursey had to leave for his flight within the next twenty minutes if he was going to get there on time, Dex knew, and he didn’t want to leave room for more awkwardness.

            Nursey managed a smile back. “You, too, Poindoodle.”

 

*~*~*

 

            It’d been a while since Dex had been in a physical fight. He was angry a lot, sure, but at Samwell, people didn’t settle things that way, and on ice he would be ejected for dropping his gloves and, anyway, his ma had always taught him to beat them with his superior skills and not his fists, and he tried to live by that. The last real physical fight he’d had was way back in his senior year of high school, with a teammate, actually. It had been around the time Dex was going to hear back from Samwell if he’d gotten in or not and his teammate, chirping but with an edge to it, had commented about it being the Gay Ivy but with less attractive diction, and Dex had been tense to begin with, so he’d swung and dealt with the consequences later.

            He’d assumed that, since then, he’d maybe lost his edge, wasn’t as quick and wasn’t used to the cadence of a fight anymore. For a time back when he lived in Maine, he knew fights better than he knew the back of his hands, which were always scraped up in new ways from all the fights he was in. He’d always been smaller than everyone else, angrier too, and people had known he was off- or, he’d called a boy pretty once in elementary school and some things just never washed off. He’d been a target for a while and he’d hated letting JJ fight his fights for him, so he learned how to get around his height and fight dirty. Then he’d shot up to 6’2 the summer after his freshman year, gained thirty pounds of muscle from hockey and helping on his uncle’s boat, and no one wanted to fight him anymore.

            That didn’t mean he stopped, just that people weren’t as quick to instigate. His fuse was still as short as ever, though, and he didn’t hesitate to solve his problems with his body when words had failed him for so long. People never listened when he spoke. They definitely paid attention when he broke their nose. But coming to Samwell changed that, when people there listened when he had things to say and said things back and it became an actual conversation rather than a fight, which he hadn’t known was possible prior to that, and he gladly dropped his fighting edge in return for that.

            Coming back to Maine, though, meant that he was once again his fighting childhood self. People saw him as they knew him, and they wouldn’t listen if he tried to explain otherwise, so he wore his brooding fighter persona quietly and didn’t complain. He didn’t talk to a lot of people from high school, anyway, and it shouldn’t have been an issue. He was more in control of himself now, so even if someone did try to provoke him, he was sure he could get away with some menacing and not have to actually fight.

            He’d been home for two weeks when it happened. The sense of displacement was wedged in between his skin and bone, irritating him with every move. He felt unsettled here, no longer home and no longer the person they saw him as, and it was frustrating, so he was tense. His Uncle Finn, the one that owned the lobster boat, must have noticed, because he invited Dex out for a beer after work one day with some other sailors. It was nice, with sticky beer and slippery wet bottles, listening to the older guys’ stories about the glory days. He hadn’t outgrown that, at least. He was pleasantly buzzed and felt like he fit for the first time in two weeks, so maybe he hadn’t been prepared to lose that so soon.

            He got up from the table to go grab another round when he bumped into someone he vaguely recognized from high school. He hadn’t been overly social, so he’d known the guys from the team and the kids who always took the AP and honors classes with him, year to year, but he couldn’t tell where he recognized this guy from. Still, Dex nodded at him amicably because he didn’t want to be rude and signaled to the bartender that he needed another round. He wasn’t carded, because the bartender knew his uncle and the police chief was Dex’s aunt, so it was several layers of ridiculous privilege that led to him getting beer at a bar, or that’s how Dex thought Nursey would put it, and he didn’t disagree.

            “Poindexter, right?” the guy from school asked. Dex nodded. The guy responded with a slow nod of his own. “You’re the smart one, right?”

            Dex glanced back at him, hesitant. “I guess.”

            “Yeah, yeah, you’re the one who got into that fancy school.” The guy sat up in his seat, intrigued, and the clumsy way he did it let Dex know he wasn’t too close to sober. “Everyone talked about that when it happened. Which one was it? Not Harvard, right?”

            “Samwell,” Dex responded, shortly, trying to broadcast how little he wanted to have this conversation. People like this guy typically knew little about specific colleges. He probably knew Harvard was The Top school, at least in general culture, probably knew football teams from some of the big places. But when it came to Samwell, the one random piece of information people usually had about it was-

            “That’s the gay school!” The guy laughed, brightly, too loud, and a few other patrons glanced over. He slapped at the bar and shook his head, grinning. “Man, that must be a trip. Lots’a fags there? You must have to beat ‘em for hittin’ on you all the time, yeah?” He said it like they were going to commiserate over how horrible gay people were, have a beer and laugh about it, and Dex wondered who the fuck this guy was. People from high school usually knew two things about him; he was queer and he liked to fight. If this guy knew those things and was still talking like that he was probably the biggest dumbass there was.

            But Dex was tipsy from the beer and good company and didn’t take kindly to this guy ruining that. So he said, “Yeah, there’s a whole bunch of ‘em down there. You know what I do when they hit on me?”

            The guy grinned. “What?”

            Dex leaned in closer and lowered his voice. “If they’re hot, I fuck ‘em.”

            The guy’s expression went disgusted in a moment and he stood up, and Dex didn’t remember what happened in the next few seconds, but within the minute they were outside in the parking lot. Dex had the guy by the collar and was breaking his knuckles open on the guy’s face. He had thought he might’ve lost his edge, not fighting for so long, but he hadn’t, not at all. The only thing that had changed was that he’d been an NCAA athlete for two years and had put on muscle mass like crazy. He didn’t know his own strength, and by the time Uncle Finn realized what was happening, the guy was nearly unconscious.

            Finn yelled at him, told him to walk it off and go home. Dex did, only because he’d looked down when Finn was yelling and saw how bloody his hands were, most of it not his own. The bar was about a three minute drive from the docks, which were only five minutes away from his house, so it took him about half an hour to get home, his hands shoved in the pockets of his shorts, head ducked. The guy had gotten in a few good hits. Dex’s lip stung and his cheek was sore, so he assumed he’d have a black eye for a week and a half or so, and his lip would heal up once he stopped playing with it. His hands were another story, split and cracked as they were, and he knew if he didn’t ice them they’d ache for weeks.

            He cleaned up his cuts when he got home, rummaged around in the kitchen for something to put on his knuckles, and then sat in front of the TV with frozen peas on his hands for a while. Before the fight, he’d had scars on his knuckles from splitting and re-splitting them so many times in school. He’d liked looking at them all scabbed and scraped, back then. Felt pride in the pain that pulled at them near constantly. At Samwell, he’d liked the scars, liked that they were healed and closed, over with. He’d thought he’d been over fighting as a whole. But one random guy with a few stupid words and Dex was- the same person he’d always been.

            Except- except no. Because he’d given up fighting people for saying shit like that sometime during his freshman year of high school. He hadn’t thought it worth it anymore, ducked his head whenever anyone got ranting and hoped they didn’t look at him. He hadn’t wanted to make a fuss or draw attention to himself, especially when he and Luke had been hooking up at the time. He’d gotten used to letting the words sit around him, murky and suffocating, and letting it go when his teammates’ trash talk got bigoted or his uncle got drunk and ranty. But today he hadn’t let it slide. He’d fought back, spoke up.

            He couldn’t tell if that was progress or not, but his hands didn’t hurt as much after that.

 

*~*~*

 

            Sometimes, when his parents got a little extra money at work or something good happened, they’d come home early and cook a big family dinner. Dex didn’t know what the reason behind tonight’s dinner was, maybe his coming home or just feeling good, but his parents came home early one night with a pot roast and the ingredients for Yorkshire pudding and told him to text his brother and anyone else he wanted over. So as they cooked, puttering around the kitchen with music on, singing and giggling amongst themselves, Dex texted JJ and then sent an announcement to the cousins’ group chat.

            Within the hour, a handful of his cousins came over. Mary was in high school and obsessed with calculus and make-up tutorials on YouTube. Kevin was kind of a dick, but not in an offensive way just a still-in-middle-school way, and brought with him his two younger brothers, Liam (8) and Isaac (6), who were both adorable and as sweet as their brother was dickish. Cassie, who was five with the personality and confidence of a grown man, was a hockey player and determined to be in the Olympics one day. She frowned at Dex’s injuries and kissed his knuckles delicately to “make the boo-boos go away”. JJ showed up last with a case of beer that Ma made him put in the back of the fridge.

            A song came on the radio that had Cassie squealing, Summer of ’69, actually. She had gotten Dex’s old iPod last year and never took his songs off of it, so she had an affinity for classic rock that baffled many adults around her. She pulled at Dex until he was standing and made him dance with her, shrieking with giggles when he pulled her into the air and dipped her. Mary joined in, dancing with both Isaac and Liam, and JJ and Kevin sat at the kitchen table, making faces at one another, because they were both big boring boring-heads, or so Cassie said.

            Dad took Cassie after a minute, so Dex spun his mother away from the oven and dipped her, and she laughed, beaming at him. She danced with him until the song ended, breathless with laughter and movement, and patted at his arm comfortingly. “You’ve got your father’s dance moves.”

            “I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not,” Dex said, and his dad called an indignant, “Hey!” from the counter where he was cutting vegetables.

            Ma laughed and shook her head. “It’s a compliment. If they won me, you’ll find yourself a nice girl in no time.”

            Dex’s chest churned, but he forced himself to let it go and not look towards JJ, who wore the expression he always did when their parents brought up girls around them, disgruntled and sympathetic, in his own way. As the next song came on, Dex picked Isaac up and tickled him until Cassie and Liam came to his rescue, pulling him to safety.

            Dinner was nice, loud, and Dex felt comfortable, if not settled. He loved his family dearly, but there was still a disconnect he didn’t know how to breach anymore, the distance farther than just from here to Samwell. He’d read in a book once that there was no longer distance than time, but Dex wondered if maybe it wasn’t time but difference.

 

*~*~*

 

            Dex’s flight got in at T.F. Green Airport early in the morning and he got a shuttle up to Providence from there. He would have driven, but when Jack gave out the tickets he paid for plane tickets, too, before Dex could argue it. It was pretty cool to be in first class, though, Dex had to admit, with the fancy seats and accommodating stewardesses. The shuttle got in a little less than an hour later, and he got a cab to Jack’s apartment. Jack wasn’t there, as he and the rest of the Falconers were at the rink already, going over strategy and warming up and whatever other things NHL players did before the final game in the Stanley Cup Series.

            Bitty was at the apartment, as were Shitty, Lardo, Ransom, Holster, and Chowder, all of whom had stayed over the night before. Dex helped Bitty in the kitchen, listening to Bitty’s nervous rambling and smiling widely despite himself at the familiarity and comfort of it. The nervous breakfast quiche Bitty made was delicious and everyone ate ravenously, worried and excited in cycles. They watched some TV, Holster coming in clutch with Netflix and Hulu accounts and an endless list of suggestions. Bitty was vibrating on the couch between them as they watched but everyone kindly didn’t mention it.

            Nursey got in a little after lunch and seeing him again was so settling that Dex gave in to his instincts and pulled him in for a hug. Nursey laughed and hugged back. “It’s good to see you, too, Dex-a-do.” He pulled back and looked at Dex’s face and frowned, peering closer. “Is that a black eye?”

            Dex touched the soft spot under his eye. It was two weeks old at that point and all but gone. No one else had noticed it. “Uh, yeah, kind of.”

            “Kind of?” Nursey’s entire face curled downwards, wrinkled and solemn, taking Dex’s chin in his hand and pulling his face closer to Nursey’s. “Is your lip split too? What the hell did you do? We’ve only been gone a month.”

            “It’s not a big deal.” Nursey stared at him, unwavering, and Dex added, “I just got into a thing with this guy from high school. It’s fine, really.” He was going to say, _You should see the other guy_ , but 1. he didn’t think Nursey would appreciate that at the current moment, and 2. he really did injure the other guy and didn’t really want to mention it at that moment.

            “You got in a fight?” Bitty’s attention was pulled away from the rest of the group, who were busy pontificating about the pros and cons of Swedish Fish, and he took two short steps over to where Dex and Nursey were standing. He looked more stricken than motherly, clutching at his chest as he peered at Dex’s face, and Dex knew that if he wasn’t already so nervous he would be lecturing Dex just like Uncle Finn did.

            “It’s not a big deal,” Dex insisted, and tried to hide his hands in his pockets before Bitty noticed. They’d been easier to hide covered in flour, and then shoved between his thighs sitting on the couch.

            Nursey noticed the movement though, because he noticed everything, and grabbed one of Dex’s hands. His touch was careful, delicate, and Dex tried not to like it as Nursey held his hand closer to his face. His expression turned down even further as he saw them, cracked and split as they were. He looked up and there was quiet anger and desperation in his eyes. “Dex.”

            Dex pulled his hand back. “It’s fine,” he told both Nursey and Bitty both. “Really. I promise.”

            Bitty was frazzled, and though he seemed skeptical, he took Dex at his word, puttering off when he heard a crash from the guest room, muttering about dumb hockey boys. Nursey, though, looked Dex in the eye and held it for a few long moments. Then he said, careful and intense, “If it gets to not be fine, will you tell me?”

            Dex looked at him and saw he understood too much. Still, Dex said, “Okay.” Nursey nodded, satisfied.

            The rest of the day, until the game, was spent baking and joking and trying to distract Bitty from everything going on. It was sw’awesome, being around the guys again. He didn’t realize how much he’d missed them until they were all in the room together and Dex felt like himself again for the first time in a month. He’d spoken to them since the break, in group chats and occasional phone calls, but it wasn’t enough. If he was going to last the summer in a place he didn’t belong anymore, he’d need to talk to his family, his Samwell family, a lot more than he already was.

            When the time for the game finally came, everyone was buzzing with anticipation. They had seats right against the glass. Dex had almost forgotten, in the months since they’d fallen out of the playoffs, how much he loved hockey. The physicality, endurance, skill of the players, the emotion that he felt, could see the players felt, it was tangible. Tater checked a guy right in front of Dex and it was _amazing_. At times, he almost wished he was out there with them, checking guys who were too rough on the forwards and connecting on the ice in passes and plays. From the sidelines, it was a tense game, just watching as the score moved in increments, unable to do anything but yell. It was tied for the entirety of the last period and everyone was on the edge of their seat, waiting, holding their breath, wanting the Falcs to score.

            And then it happened. Jack hit a fucking beautiful shot right passed the goalie, the buzzer went, and the Falcs had won. The entire stadium went crazy, everyone was screaming, confetti was falling. Dex felt it in his bones, the euphoria and relief and the big ass _fuck you_ to everyone who ever doubted Jack when he got the Cup and held it over his head, fucking beaming. Bitty was crying, so was literally everyone else, and the second they saw they’d be allowed on the ice they pushed to get through. They stood amongst this year’s _Stanley Cup Champions_ , unable to stop grinning, and Bitty ran off to hug Jack and everyone else hung back to give them a moment. Chowder was rambling excitedly, his hands flapping around crazily, and Nursey was laughing and Dex couldn’t stop smiling and then he looked over and-

            And Jack and Bitty were kissing.

 

*~*~*

 

            When Dex’s dad picked him up from the airport, he was quiet. He wasn’t a quiet man, always laughing or talking or humming off-key to some song in his head. Dex was quiet, too, but he always was. He tapped his fingers on the passenger side door, fidgeting, eyes moving restlessly over scenery as it became more and more familiar. Usually, on long drives, his dad always had stories to go along with the ride. He’d gotten drunk at that restaurant, he’d met someone famous at that café, had worked in that garage for one summer. If he was unfamiliar with the area, he’d make something up, just tell a story to get Dex to smile. The drive home from the airport felt infinite at the lack of it all.

            He told himself he was making it up, hoped that he wasn’t lying.

            Once at home, Dex’s mom was waiting in the foyer for them, and she hugged him like she always did, maybe even a bit tighter than normal. “I missed you,” she said, smiling widely at him when she pulled back. Her eyes were- glassy, maybe. “I know I should be used to you being away, but I got used to having you home again.” Was she acting like she’d lost something important, maybe?

            Dex smiled back, a little awkward. “Sorry, Ma. There was a party after the game and with- everything going on, I thought it’d be good to stay a couple extra days to help out.” Mostly, he baked in the kitchen with Bitty and took away his phone whenever he tried to check social media. Shitty ran Jack interference, and everyone else volleyed between the two and helped out around the apartment, picking up after the party and answering phone calls and joking like everything was normal. They’d only gone home after Jack and Bitty had all but forced them out the door, promising to call if they needed anything. So now Dex was back in Maine, feeling useless, with his phone always on and charged, just in case.

            Ma hesitated at his words, but then said, carefully, “You’re a good friend.” She patted at his arm. “Go put your stuff down, alright? I’m making meatloaf for dinner and it should be ready soon.”

            Dex frowned. “Aren’t we going to Aunt Marie’s?” Nearly every Sunday, especially in the summer, the Poindexter clan had a big cookout in one of the aunts or uncles’ backyards, with beer and food and music. It was one of the only places the working adults had to relax and let loose, and Dex loved going just as much as his parents did.

            Ma’s eyes flitted over to Dad in the doorway and Dex looked to him. Dad rolled his bottom lip over his teeth, bit down on it, and then let it go. “We decided to sit out this weekend,” he said, his voice careful. “We thought you’d be tired from all the- travelling.” Dex looked from the stilted, tense expression on his dad’s face to the suddenly desperate one on his ma’s and nodded, couldn’t seem to stop nodding.

            “Yeah, yeah, I’m- yeah, alright.” He swallowed and gestured towards the stairs. “I’m going to-” He turned and took the stairs two at a time, not stopping until he reached his room. He closed the door behind him and slid to the floor, his breath already stolen from his chest. He pushed his head between his knees and told himself to calm down, it wasn’t a big deal, they didn’t know, they didn’t _know_.

            But it was an indication, wasn’t it? Being- being that way would mean quiet car rides and stilted sentences and isolation. If that was only because his friend was gay- or bi, in Jack’s case- imagine how they’d be if it was him. And, fuck, they probably already thought he was. They hadn’t been ignorant to the rumors around him in high school, he was sure JJ had told them at one point, and maybe this was just the confirmation they needed to confront him about it. And what would he say? He couldn’t- wouldn’t lie, not after everything he’d done to get to the point he was at now. Where he could say it, did say it, articulated it to everyone on the team with the actual words, now that Holster had added him to the bi group chat (consisting of him, Lardo, and Jack, who wasn’t active but sometimes sent thumbs up emojis) and Bitty and him talked cute guys on their way to practice and he felt _comfortable_.

            The thought of not being able to come home anymore, even with how unsettled he’d felt being here, terrified him. Because he knew that was what would happen, he would stop coming home to make them feel more comfortable until eventually he just stopped coming home all together and he would just become one of the many things his family never talked about. Until he disappeared completely.

 

*~*~*

 

            JJ’s apartment was small, but could have been cozy with the right touch. JJ didn’t have that particular touch, unfortunately. It was the upstairs of an actual house, renovated into three apartments, two downstairs and one above, and JJ had lived there for a few years. He didn’t have décor more than the necessary furniture and supplies to live, and Dex didn’t like being there all that much, but it was better than being home. JJ knew that, but said nothing when Dex showed up after work, just handed him a beer and shut the door behind him. Dex’s parents, in the morning when he’d told them he was staying at JJ’s for dinner that night, had shared a look before nodding, tense and awkward and overwhelming.

            After searching his kitchen for food, Dex realized that JJ didn’t have much for dinner, so they ordered pizza. JJ had cable, but the only shows they could agree on to watch were sports or cartoons, so JJ flipped the channel to a baseball game Dex didn’t care about and let it play. They pretended to be watching that as they ate, occupying themselves completely to avoid conversation. JJ hadn’t said anything since Dex got back from Providence, and neither had any of his other family members. They went to last week’s barbeque and Dex mostly hung out with his younger cousins, the ones who had no idea what drama the adults were dealing with and didn’t care. Some of his family members looked at him, though, partly suspicious and partly scared, and Dex was exhausted with it.

            Uncle Finn, who had always been Dex’s favorite uncle even if he wasn’t supposed to have favorites, had been tense the first two days when Dex got back to work, but after that he let things go back to a relative normal, if maybe a bit stilted. At home, his parents stared at him a lot when they thought he wasn’t looking, and every time he was on his phone they fidgeted around him, tense. The only reprieve Dex got from the stares was on his morning run, and he’d been finding himself running longer and longer routes just to prolong the freedom.

            A part of him wished they’d just ask him about it. It had happened, once, way back in middle school, when the rumors were plenty and the fights not far behind. JJ, who’d just gone off to high school at the time, had heard through some kind of means that everyone thought his little brother was a fag, and, that night, sitting at the kitchen table before their parents got home, he’d asked Dex about it, if he was what they said he was. Dex hadn’t known what to say, not yet practiced in lying, and had said he didn’t know. JJ had looked at him, hard, for a few moments and then nodded, like he’d come to a decision, and he’d never told Dex what that decision had been.

            JJ treated him the same after that, nothing at all changed, which Dex thought might have been the easiest acceptance he’d gotten before going to Samwell. Dex wasn’t sure how JJ felt about it, or how he felt about Dex, to be honest, but he’d had years to get used to it, if there was anything to get used to at all. There were many things Dex didn’t like about his brother, the way he spoke and his partiality for drinks, but in this way, Dex adored him.

            Around inning five, two slices in for each of them, JJ said, “That hockey season was crazy.” Dex glanced at him, but JJ didn’t look away from the screen. “That final series, with the back and forth.” He shook his head. “Fucking nuts, man.”

            “Stressful,” Dex agreed. He didn’t know where JJ was taking this. It wasn’t unusual for him to start conversations about sports or drinks or TV shows he found funny, but this felt too close.

            “That kid you’re friends with, Zimmermann, he must’ve hated it.” JJ grinned, shitty, and nudged Dex in the side with his elbow. “Hope he didn’t fall back on any old habits ‘cause of it, yeah?”

            Dex clenched his jaw. “It wasn’t like that and you _know_ it-” Dex cut himself off when he saw the way JJ looked at him from the side, grinning at getting a reaction out of him. Dex huffed and looked away, towards the TV. He hated that JJ knew how to get a rise out of him so easily. He was like Nursey that way, except Nursey also knew just how to get Dex to laugh or come out of a funk, too.

            “Yeah, I know, I know. Mental health and all that.” JJ flapped his hand in the air, dismissive. “Anyway, didn’t need it, did he? Had that blond kid to get his stress out with.”

            “John.” Dex never used JJ’s real name (John Junior, after their dad), no matter how mad he got, but if he started to go after Bitty, Dex wouldn’t hesitate to use his superior size on him, even if JJ had been the one who taught him how to fight.

            JJ was quiet for a minute or two, uncommon. He never backed down from a fight. Poindexters never did. Finally, he asked, “Didn’t know they were gonna do that, huh?”

            Dex stared at the floor, where a ratty blue rug was covering the carpet. The edge had frayed from the coffee table moving over it constantly. Dex swallowed. “ _They_ hadn’t even known. It wasn’t like- they didn’t plan it. In the moment, they-” Dex huffed, his hands clenching around his own knees, fingers slipping against skin. “Everyone else was kissing their wives and girlfriends and-” He forced his hands to relax and stared at the screen, where a commercial for a car was playing. The family smiled and laughed as they all piled in for a road trip and Dex’s chest constricted painfully.

            “It’s not fair,” JJ said, quiet. Dex turned to look at him, shocked, and JJ was shaking his head, face solemn. “I’m sorry, kid.” He looked up at Dex and Dex felt like he’d punched him. “It’s never been fair.” His eyes were earnest, wide, and JJ never talked about his feelings so Dex didn’t have a frame of reference but it felt like the most honest JJ had ever been, at least with him.

            “It’s alright,” Dex said, because there wasn’t much he could do.

            JJ shook his head furiously. “No,” he said, suddenly angry, “it’s not fair that they all look at you like you’re a-a criminal or some shit when you’re the same fucking person you’ve always been. Just ‘cause you’re a f-” JJ stopped as Dex couldn’t hold back his wince. JJ sucked at his teeth. “Sorry. What- is there a word you don’t mind? Like- gay, or whatever?”

            Dex never thought he’d ever say this to his brother. “Technically, I’m bi.”

            JJ scrunched up his face. “So, like, both?” Dex nodded. “So you really did like those girls you brought home in high school?”

            Dex huffed something like a laugh. “Yeah, actually, I did.”

            JJ nodded, his bottom lip pursed in a somewhat impressed expression. “That’s good, ‘cause I’m pretty sure a few of them actually didn’t mind you.”

            Dex laughed, shoving JJ in the side, and JJ smiled back, though he tried to hide it. They stopped talking, after that, just ate and drank and watched TV (finally switching to HGTV to criticize the homeowners together) for the rest of the night. Dex marveled at how he’d never felt closer to his brother or more isolated from the rest of his family in his life.

 

*~*~*

 

            The Poindexter family barbeques were a staple in their culture. Every Sunday, after mass, they would change out of their good clothes and go and get drunk in someone’s backyard. The day would start after lunch, with the uncles grilling, and by the time they actually had to eat, the younger cousins would be watching the food, all the adults too tipsy to be near the heat. The littlest kids would run around in the grass, barefoot and squealing, and people would fight over the playlist, leaving them with a mix of old rock, old pop, folksy stuff, and modern stuff, if a young cousin managed to grab hold. Dex had grown up with these barbeques, loved being close to his family, talking to his uncles and being teased by his aunts and commiserating with the cousins his age. It was what family meant to him.

            By the third one after coming back from Providence- the first one being the one his parents made him skip and the second one where everyone looked at him suspiciously- Dex’s family seemed to have tentatively returned to treating him as they had before. Dex didn’t know if it was JJ’s doing or time’s, but he wasn’t going to question it. Cousin Fiona had trusted him enough to hand him her infant daughter and his Aunt Cindy teased him about how muscly he was getting and he felt normal, more normal than he had since break started, maybe.

            They ate around six, like they always did, paper plates piled high precariously with meat and salad and sides. Dex made sure to get things that fit his diet plan, though he did sneak into the kitchen to grab an extra helping of potato salad because his aunt’s recipe was delicious. He sat between two of his cousins and laughed as they lamented about how bad high school was, telling them it got better, as he knew both of them wanted to go to college. After they ate, one of his younger cousins, about six or seven, roped him in to a game of freeze tag, and he continued to freeze in ridiculous positions until the dessert was brought out.

            After dessert, it started to get dark and late, and a few of the families, especially the ones with little kids, decided to call it a night. Dex was happy, drunk on the closeness and not actual alcohol, as he’d only had one hard lemonade the whole night. Someone was playing slow songs over the speakers, and a few couples were dancing in slow circles, and Dex’s parents were one of them. Dex was messing around on his phone, texting half-heartedly in the group chat where some debate about slippers vs. socks was going on and snapping pictures back and forth with Nursey on Snapchat. Nursey was at some art gallery thing with his mom, wearing a nice button up that Dex wanted to wrinkle between his fingers every time Nursey sent him a selfie.

            He was fairly engrossed in staring at Nursey’s tipsy, grinning face for the seven seconds it was on his screen, so he didn’t notice what his uncle was saying until after the snap disappeared. “…ruining the sport, making it all about drama. Of course they do, ha, queers love their theatrics.” Uncle Brian was Dex’s father’s older brother, the technical patriarch of the family, though everyone knew Grammy Poindexter ran everything from her designated lawn chair. He looked like Dex’s dad, something that had always highlighted their differences rather than likened them. Brian was always angry about something, and while Dex’s dad had anger, too, he was quieter, kinder, about it. Brian liked to hold court at family gatherings and pontificate about his most recent topic, ranting and furious- and bigoted, usually.

            Apparently, tonight’s topic was… gay people in sports?

            Dex listened closer. “The Falconers are an expansion team, just won their first Cup, every part of them, the team and management, everything, worked so well. And what’s everyone talking about? Zimmermann being a faggot!” One or two of the people around Brian nodded absently, but mostly everyone had learned to ignore him when he got ranting. “Just like them to make it all about themselves.” Brian was apparently dissatisfied with his little audience, and he suddenly looked up, making eye contact with Dex. He gestured with his hand and called, “C’mere, Will, let me ask you a question.”

            Dex didn’t want to, but this was his uncle, and things had just gotten back to normal. He told himself he would be able to stay calm no matter what happened and walked, footsteps slow, over to where his uncle was sitting. The amount of people paying attention doubled with Dex’s arrival and Dex fidgeted.

            “Having them on your team, do you have to fight to get recognition? Don’t they just make everything about them? With their pride and safe spaces and whatnot.” Brian grinned around his beer bottle like he was expecting a funny, commiserating answer, but there was an edge in his eyes that made Dex feel like he was being tested on something.

            “Jack and Bitty are both really good players. Any time they steal the show on the ice, it’s because they deserved it.” Dex felt himself slip into his post-game interview voice, bland but honest, reserved.

            Brian didn’t seem to like this answer. “Okay, yeah, but off the ice. In the locker rooms, bet they’re uncomfortable and make a big stink about it, don’t they?”

            Dex blinked at him, tried not to say it, but- “They’re actually probably more comfortable with male nudity than any of the straight guys. You know.” He inclined his head pointedly and Brian flushed as two of the onlookers snorted in response.

            Now red in the face, Brian asked, “But some things _have to be_ different. You would know, playing on a team with them.”

            Dex shrugged. “They’re good players, good guys, and I’d say the only difference between having a straight captain and a gay one would be that there’s a lot more tolerance in the room.”

            Brian hit the table he sat at, visibly flustered now, and Dex felt a mean sort of pleasure at causing it when he had kept his own calm perfectly. Brian said, “You have to agree with me on the Cup! All anyone’s talking about is Zimmermann being a fag and nothing about the actual game.”

            Dex rocked back on his heels, hands in his pockets, casual. “I feel like that’s more a problem with the media than anything Jack did.” And he couldn’t help it, he just- “Also, I don’t know what constitutes a “fag” but he’s bi, not gay, so.”

            Brian shot up from his seat, staggering with it, and the few people watching who were snickering stopped immediately. Brian took three swaying steps towards Dex and Dex had to force himself not to flinch backwards. He opened his mouth to say something, his breath stinking of harder alcohol than beer, but he was cut off. “Will, I think it’s time to go.” Dex looked over to see his dad standing nearby, eyes worried but mouth set in a firm line. Ma stood behind him, eyes wide and scared, holding onto Dex’s father like a vice.

            Dex swallowed and nodded, and they hardly said goodbye to anyone before they were driving home. Dex was the designated driver, so he drove, his dad in the passenger seat, and his ma in the back. In his pocket, halfway home, Dex’s phone buzzed and he knew it was Nursey and never before had he wanted to check his phone while he was driving, but he needed the comfort of Nursey’s tipsy smile to get through whatever this was going to be. Uncle Brian’s house was only about ten minutes away from home, though, so he waited until he pulled into the driveway to open it.

            He had apparently waited too long to respond, because Nursey sent a picture of himself pouting dramatically with the caption “whered you go” across the front. Dex smiled at it for three seconds before shoving his phone in his pocket and following his parents inside. A part of him wanted to play the angsty teenager he never really was and go straight upstairs without saying anything. But he was nearly twenty-one and this whole thing wouldn’t just go away if he willed it to, so he said, “I’m sorry.” He wasn’t, but he thought that might help diffuse the situation. “I shouldn’t have spoken like that to Uncle Brian.”

            Dad grunted and walked into the kitchen, and Ma’s eyes flitted between his retreating back and Dex, hesitating. Finally, she said, “It’s alright, honey. Why don’t you go on up to bed? You have an early morning tomorrow.” It was as early as any other morning, but Dex didn’t argue. He turned to go upstairs and the last thing he heard before leaving was his mother’s voice, strained and sad and desperate, just saying, “John…”

 

*~*~*

 

            Word spread through the family quick, and by Tuesday after the barbeque, everything was back to being weird. Finn glanced at him out of the corner of his eye when he didn’t think Dex was looking and his parents looked at him like they didn’t know how to talk to him anymore and Dex couldn’t handle it. He couldn’t handle four more weeks of so obviously being the odd one out, of being one of the things no one talked about when he was _in the room with them_ , of being treated like he was broken or someone completely different than he was before. It was worse than just feeling like he was out of place, like he had at the beginning of the summer, because now everyone else felt it too.

            So, late one night, lying back in his childhood bed, he called Nursey. “Hypothetically speaking, how many guestrooms does your brownstone have available?”

            There was a beat or two of silence before Nursey said, “Two, but you get the smaller one.” Dex grinned, even if it hurt, pressing his cheek so tight against the phone with it.

            They worked out the details. Dex tried to argue he’d only be there for a few days, maybe a week. He felt that a reprieve would help him deal with it well enough for the rest of the summer, and maybe it would mellow out by the time Thanksgiving came around. Not that he told Nursey this. Still Nursey argued that he had to stay for at least two weeks because it was “New freaking York, brah” and Nursey had to show him the sights- “The good ones, not touristy shit you’d get with anybody, a Derek Nurse special tour”. Dex knew that at the end of those two weeks Nursey would probably convince him to just stay until they went back to school, which Nursey knew, too, but didn’t say.

            “Alright, I bought your ticket, and if you get mad at me I’ll make you sleep on the couch.” Dex wasn’t happy with Nursey spending money on him like that, because even though he knew Nursey had the means, he still felt like an imposition. But he didn’t argue it because he was just so relieved to be leaving that even the prospect of doing it calmed him. Nursey seemed to realize that from his silence. Quiet, he asked, “Is it really that bad?”

            Dex sighed. “I-it was fine, really, in the beginning, but-” He cut himself off, debating, and then said, “You have to promise me you won’t tell this to Jack and Bitty ever.”

            “I promise, I won’t.”

            Dex sucked in a quick breath. “After their kiss, my whole family got- weird. They knew I was on their team and they knew I’d never complained about it and they got- suspicious. And they keep looking at me like- like I’m not the same person anymore, like I’m dangerous or something, and it’s just- too much.”

            Nursey’s voice was heavy with understanding when he said, “I’m sorry, Dex.”

            Dex shrugged, even though he knew Nursey couldn’t see it, and his voice only broke slightly when he said, “It’s what it is.”

            The next morning, he told Finn he’d be leaving Maine for the rest of the summer, and that he was sorry for leaving him during one of the busiest seasons. Finn told him it was alright, though he did look almost relieved, and maybe even for Dex instead of himself. Finn always was Dex’s favorite uncle. After work, Dex went over to JJ’s apartment, but he wasn’t there, so he texted him that he was leaving. JJ responded that it was probably a good move, which Dex assumed was his way of saying “This sucks and I’m sorry it’s happening”. All that left after that was telling his parents.

            Some nights both of his parents worked late, sometimes just one of them, but Wednesday, they both came home early enough to make dinner. Dex had spent the night in the kitchen, making a nice meal for them to enjoy, and served them both before sitting himself. He sat at the table with them and listened to their small talk about their days, letting the familiarity of it wash over him, even if it was just a thin layer covering everything they weren’t saying. Dex waited for a lull towards the end of the meal to make his move.

            “A friend of mine invited me to stay with him in New York for a couple weeks,” Dex said, and both of his parents looked up at him at the same time. He cleared his throat. “I was thinking of going.”

            His mom blinked a little too fast at him, her eyes getting glassy, sort of. “I-” He watched her mind working behind her eyes as she tried to find something to say. Finally, she settled on, “You shouldn’t leave your Uncle Finn without help like that, Will.”

            “I talked to him today,” Dex said, trying not to notice her heart breaking in her eyes. “I would leave Friday, and he said he could find a replacement by then.”

            “Which friend? Do we know him?” Dex’s dad frowned at him, no longer moving to eat his meal. His eyes weren’t expressive, but pointedly hard.

            “Nursey, Derek Nurse, from the team. He’s my d-partner and we’ll be rooming together in the hockey frat in August.” Dex took a bite of his peas, trying to appear casual. He wasn’t asking their permission, as he was an adult and didn’t need it, but he didn’t want to ruin their relationship completely.

            “Is he-” Ma cut herself off quickly and looked down. Dex’s heart raced. He knew exactly how that sentence ended.

            “We just-” Dad paused, too, but continued a few seconds later. “With everything the way it is right now, leaving would be…” Dad looked to Ma for help, and Dex looked at her too. Her eyes were wide and wet and she stared at him imploringly.

            “Honey, we’re concerned, we-” She stopped and swallowed visibly. “We feel like we’re losing you, and-and we don’t know what to do.”

            There were things Poindexters didn’t do, one of which was talk about anything remotely serious. One of the few solaces Dex had in all this was that he hadn’t thought his parents would make him actually talk about it. They might’ve looked at him, their eyes filled with grief, but he assumed that would be the extent of it and they’d proceed on like that until Dex actually left for good and they had a real lost son to grieve over.

            “I-” Dex looked down at his plate. He’d never planned what he’d say, in this kind of moment, felt too much like tempting fate. He took a moment to figure out what he wanted to say. “I’m not- being in college has changed things for me. I’m a different person now and I don’t- I like who that person is becoming. I’m just not sure how he fits in here anymore.”

            His parents were quiet for a few minutes after that. Dex stared at the remnants of the meal in front of him, thought of how being alone in the kitchen made him feel closer to home than driving passed the town line had. Bitty had taught him admission through baking, acceptance like a smile after the first bite. Still, everything he’d learned felt as fragile as a perfectly flaky crust. He’d only been here a month and a half and he already- he felt wrong again. Like he was the bad thing, the thing making everything else worse, like he was ruining everything. And though the part of him that sounded like a weird mix of Bitty and Shitty told him that it wasn’t him, it was his family and their views and the way they lived, the louder part of him, the one that sounded like a fourteen-year-old version of himself, terrified, said that _he_ was the problem and _he_ needed to fix it, fix himself. And he couldn’t let himself do that, not when he’d come this far.

            “We love you, kid, okay?” his dad finally said. “And you always fit in here with us, but we all just need some time to adjust.” His voice was hopeful, and Dex looked up to see him nodding, encouraging. _Time_ , he said, like he needed it to see if he could still love a queer son.

            “I don’t know if I can wait that long right now,” Dex told him, trying to be earnest and not biting. “There’s things I’ve only just adjusted to myself, and if I stay- I- it might- it might undo that progress.”

            “Undo what, honey?” His mom was desperate with her words, leaning closer to him despite the table between them. “If you like this-this new person you’ve become and you think he’s better than you were, we would- we would of course love the changes, too.”

            “Would you?” Dex asked, and instantly felt bad for his tone when his mother flinched, but he didn’t apologize. He looked to his dad and he was frowning back at him, but didn’t scold him for speaking that way to his mother, and Dex knew it was because he was considering the question, too. Dex swallowed and it scratched his throat. “I know- I know how it is, okay? And I’m not going to- make a big deal out of it or anything, I just need some space. And I think going to Nursey’s is the best thing for me right now.”

            His parents looked at each other, speaking in the silences between them and the emotions behind their eyes, and Dex had always admired their relationship. They still loved each other, still showed it, more than twenty years after getting married. They could speak without words, talk all night when they did use them, held each other like they wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. There were so many things Dex loved about his parents, about his family, and that this one thing would ruin all of that pained him. But it wasn’t just a little thing. It had taken distance to see that, see how much it had affected him growing up, and he wouldn’t let it happen again.

            Finally, they turned towards him, identical looks of determination on their faces. “Alright,” Dad said, firmly. “You go if you think it’s best. And we- we’ll work on it, okay?”

            “Because we _do_ love you. We love you so much. We just- we need time.” Mom kept her eyes on Dex’s, resolute, and Dex felt it in that moment, and he loved them for it, even if it hurt.

 

*~*~*

 

            Nursey picked him up from the airport with a wide grin. Dex forgot how much worse his affection for Nursey got when they were physically together, but then Nursey tripped trying to jog over to greet him, and Dex’s heart grew like the Grinch’s, and he remember just how gone he was on Nursey’s stupid everything. After righting himself and actually making his way over to Dex, Nursey grabbed him in a tight hug that Dex allowed himself to melt into. “Hey,” he said, into Nursey’s shoulder.

            “Hey yourself,” Nursey replied, and their hug went on a few seconds too long, but Dex wasn’t going to say anything if Nursey didn’t. He didn’t pull back that far and it took Dex a moment to remember that this was normal for them, for the guys at Samwell. In his family they loved each other, but they weren’t overly physically affectionate, and Dex didn’t realize how much he’d wanted someone in his personal space until Nursey was there for him. “You’re not bruised this time,” Nursey pointed out, peering at Dex’s face closely, like he suspected Dex of covering bruises with make-up or something.

            Dex rolled his eyes and resisted the urge to say, _just emotionally_. He actually said, “I used my words this time, I thought you’d be proud.”

            Nursey smiled and threw an arm around Dex’s neck, pulling him towards the baggage claim. “Of course I’m proud of you, Dex-a-Doodle.” He voice was sincere and not the least bit joking, and Dex let himself lean into his side more fully, content. “Also, we’d better hurry, because I have the stuff for a cherry pie back home in the kitchen and I don’t know how long it’ll be before my dad tries to eat it, so.” He pulled Dex quicker and Dex couldn’t help but laugh, delighted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed! The following two chapters will be posted soon, so check back if you've enjoyed it thus far.  
> If you'd like, leave a comment or a kudo, it definitely makes my day every time I see a new one :)


	4. step four - cover the mistakes with sugar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How long ‘til it’s done?” Nursey asked.  
> “I don’t have Bitty’s magic, so about forty-five minutes.”  
> Nursey hummed, a smirk pulling at his lips. “What can we do for forty-five minutes?”  
> “I dunno,” Dex said. “We could go back to the party.”  
> “Or,” Nursey said, leaning forwards, into Dex’s space, “we could do something just us two.”  
> Dex swallowed, harsh. He wasn’t nearly drunk enough for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again! Thank you all for your such lovely comments thus far! They've really made me excited to post every time I read them. This is the second to last chapter of the fic, and it's kind of happier than the last chapter, but also... Sorry my dudes. I swear it ends happily!  
> Warnings for this chapter include homophobia, f-slur, racism, and allusions to violence.  
> I hope you enjoy!

            Living with Nursey quickly became one of the easiest things in Dex’s life. His course load had increased dramatically since he declared his major, computer engineering, as he hadn’t been taking the expected engineering classes prior to declaring and needed to make them up quickly if he was going to graduate in two years instead of three. As for hockey, Bitty had become ruthless in his captaining of the team- tips from his Russian figure skating coach were definitely incorporated- which was both because he really wanted to win this year and because he wanted to prove all the asshole sports reporters wrong and shove it in their faces. Then, of course, there was the stuff with Dex’s family, who he’d spoken to in broken parts since joining Nursey in New York and who the very thought of curled something painfully in Dex’s chest.

            Rooming with Nursey, compared to everything else in Dex’s life, was frighteningly easy. In New York, they’d lived together, though in separate rooms, and it somewhat prepared them for living in the Haus together. They’d developed a routine there. Dex would wake up first and go for a run, and by the time he got back, Nursey would be half-awake with a cup of coffee in his hands. He’d give Dex a water bottle to cool down with and then shove a mug of coffee-and-milk at him for Dex to burn his tongue on. Nursey would snort at Dex’s pain and Dex would shove him and, sometimes, they’d have a wrestling match right there in the kitchen that Mr. or Mrs. Nurse would walk in on and raise an eyebrow at, if they weren’t already at work.

            A little before noon, both of them would be showered and ready, and Nursey would take Dex to his favorite places around the city. A little bookstore shoved between a Chinese food place and a garage, so that the books smelled like chow mein or gasoline, depending on which side of the store they were on. There was a secluded garden a few blocks away from Nursey’s brownstone, one of those green projects meant to brighten up the city, and they’d sit there, some days, quiet for an hour or two, reading or thinking or, after one late night, sleeping. Those late nights usually came about because of a bar that had a concert or poetry reading, and Nursey dragged Dex to all of them, buying himself drinks and withholding them from Dex until he said something nice about Nursey.

            After their day, they’d go back to the brownstone and change into soft clothes and watch a movie or a show on Nursey’s big ass TV. Sometimes they’d make it back to their rooms, sometimes they’d fall asleep on the couch, smushed against one another, to be found by Nursey’s parents later on. One time, Nursey had insisted it was too far to walk to the guest room and bodily tugged Dex into his bed with him, which Dex blamed fully on the alcohol, both for Nursey’s asking and his own acceptance.

            Most of that didn’t transfer to the Haus, where their schedules diverged more heavily and they resolutely slept in their own beds, but the feeling of it did. Dex would come back from a run and Nursey would have water and coffee ready. Nursey would come out of the shower and Dex would throw him the pants he’d forgotten to take in the bathroom with him. Dex would freak out looking for his mechanics notebook and Nursey would hold it out to him without looking away from his computer screen. After a kegster, Dex would help Nursey up the stairs, avoiding the cracks and unevenness easily, even with a drunken hockey player leaning on his shoulder. That feeling of “I got you” was in everything they did.

            It confirmed something for Dex that he’d suspected for a long time. He and Nursey worked on ice, worked as roommates, because they were in sync in a Holster-and-Ransom type fashion, but they weren’t soft about it, friendly about it, like the original d-man pairing was. Dex thought that maybe it was because they didn’t need it like that. Dex needed someone to shove him out of his desk chair when he got too fed up with a problem set and wrestle him away- emotionally or physically- from the stress. Nursey needed someone to throw waded up paper at his head when he got too far into it during a writing binge and make him eat something. They needed the harshness to take the kindness with, like the way they both needed milk in their coffee, and Dex didn’t know whether or not it was a bad thing. All he knew was that it worked.

            It was a lot for someone hopelessly in love with an unattainable person, and he found himself in Bitty’s kitchen every time Nursey was out of the house, mixing or crimping or glazing his frustration into the pastries Bitty let him have. He lamented his ridiculous crush and Bitty would give him sympathetic eyes, and Dex would listen as Bitty sighed about courses and his thesis and the media and how much he hated being away from Jack. In some tacit agreement, they’d somehow established that family wasn’t currently on the table. Dex said nothing about his own situation because he knew it would lead back to the kiss and he didn’t want Bitty to feel like he’d caused it (which Dex knew Bitty would, despite the fact that it had been building for a long time before that). Dex didn’t know how the Bittles felt about what had happened. All he knew was that Bitty always left the room to take calls from them now, and that the gossip about the Bittle jam drama hadn’t had any developments since May.

            “-and then he said, I don’t think people should be cooking fruit, like the entire idea of pies was ridiculous, so I told him to wait right there, and about half an hour later I came back with a regular ol’ apple and shoved it in his face. He ate his words, honey, let me tell you, and they were delicious,” Bitty said as he pushed together clumps of flour and butter. The pie they’d made was already in the oven, but Bitty always liked to have chilled pie crust in the fridge, just in case.

            “Nursey’s mom thought the same way,” Dex said, cleaning the measuring cups one by one, carefully laying them out on a dishtowel to dry. “Then we made your cherry pie and she literally ate half of it in the middle of the night when we were all asleep.” Bitty laughed pleasantly and Dex smiled, too, at the memory of Mrs. Nurse- “Farah, call me Farah”- with her guilty expression when they’d pulled the nearly empty pie tin out of the fridge the morning after.

            Bitty was quiet for a minute or two and Dex moved on to the mixing bowl, rinsing out the leftover filling. It had started to rain sometime during their baking session, and Dex made a note to stop by Annie’s for a warm tea for Nursey before he got home in a few hours. He was always grumpy when it got cold and wet. Bitty said, “How was that? Staying with the Nurses?”

            Dex shrugged. “Nice, actually. They weren’t home that much, ‘cause they work so much, but they were really cool when they were there. Mrs. Nurse knows literally every Trivial Pursuit fact there is and Mr. Nurse has this sw’awesome technology collection of, like, weird little trinkets and gadgets, and he let me take a few of them apart to see inside.”

            Bitty hummed, casual, and came over to grab the saran wrap out of the cabinet next to Dex’s head. “How’d that come about, that visit? I don’t remember you boys talking about it before break.”

            Dex tensed, and looked over to take in Bitty’s forced-casual posture and refusal to look back at Dex. Dex looked down at the bowl in his hand. It filled with water, washing away the glaze of the filling slowly but surely. He said, “He called me up a couple weeks before the end of break and asked me to come. He was bored alone in his fancy brownstone by himself all day.”

            Dex felt Bitty staring at the side of his head, unwavering, and tried not to flinch. He soaped up the bowl and rinsed it off, putting it on the dish towel with the measuring cups. He reached for a spatula. Bitty asked, “Hun, is everything okay?”

            Dex had wanted to talk about it since term had started. It felt heavy in his chest, the way his parents had looked as if they didn’t know if they could love him the same anymore even as they told him they would. JJ’s anger, which was palpable through every phone call, even if he never brought it up again, had only proved to sadden Dex further. His little cousins asked after him only to be met with silence, his older cousins messaged him short things, like “how are you?” that Dex didn’t know how to respond to. His connection to Maine, to his family, felt like it was snapping thinner and thinner with every day, and all Dex wanted to do was push it into a pie and have something good finally come out of it.

            “Yeah,” he said, and his voice was nearly steady. “Just all the studying and practices.” He shook his head. “It’s a lot.”

            Bitty came over and squeezed at his shoulder. The look in his eyes told Dex he didn’t believe him, not completely, but he still smiled, because Bitty did love him unconditionally, and in that moment, it felt like everything. “I’m always here for you, if you need me,” he said, and Dex believed him.

 

*~*~*

 

            After practice, Dex felt electrified. They were only a few months into the year, but something about this year’s team felt magic. Bitty’s ability to captain was on point, knowing exactly what everyone needed to hear to fix their game or give it their all, memorizing plays like they were recipes, and his insane speed on the ice paired with the smoothest of hands made him a fucking good player, too. All the forwards had been on their game, passes connecting and shots hitting the back of the net consistently. Chowder had only gotten better with time and now it was a miracle if the other team managed to get anything past him. And Dex, well, Dex was on fire- a metaphor that Nursey would surely appreciate.

            But he was. Something had clicked for him. With everything else in his life stressing him out except for living with Nursey (and sometimes baking with Bitty, but ever since he decided not to tell Bits about his family, there’d been a twist in his chest every time they talked) hockey had somehow done the opposite. It was almost easy for him, check that guy, keep Chow from having to work, pass to Nursey, catch a pass from Nursey, put it in the net. His endurance had increased and he could go minutes without getting winded. His speed was better with Bitty’s calisthenics, his handling was better from Jack’s captaining (and continued tips because once a captain always a captain), his defensive abilities were better from Ransom and Holster’s tutelage, and he and Nursey were so connected that he didn’t even have to think about it before passing anymore.

            The feeling of accomplishment accompanied him with the end of every practice and game, and he liked having that in his head rather than anything else right now. It made his skin buzz, amped him up, and he wanted to do something with it every time. A part of him wanted a fight, but a good one, evenly matched. An equal sized part of him wanted sex, but as he was hopelessly gone on his roommate, that wasn’t likely. The rest of him just wanted a run or a video game session or a kegster. He decided to settle with a jog to Annie’s to get a breakfast pastry (a croissant, probably, as Bitty had to be in a very particular mood to make one of those so he rarely got them) and a coffee. He was debating getting Nursey something, too, while he tied his shoes, as Dex knew he had an essay due tomorrow that he’d probably be working on all day and he wouldn’t eat unless Dex forced him to.

            Then Bitty stopped in front of him, freshly showered and wearing what was obviously one of Jack’s shirts. He smiled, friendly, but his expression hadn’t lost that captain tinge to it, his eyes just a bit steelier than usual and a determined confidence in his posture. He said, “You did really well today, hun.”

            Dex grinned at that. “Thanks. Though half the reason that play worked was because Nursey was there right when he needed to be.”

            “You two have been working real well together,” Bitty agreed. “But you’ve been really improving the past two months just on your own. You’ve become one of our strongest players.” Dex beamed back, enjoying the praise immensely, and Bitty smiled back. Then he glanced at the exit to the locker room and asked, “Do you have anything after this?”

            “I don’t have class until the afternoon, so no.” Dex finished tying his shoes and grabbed his jacket and backpack. “I was going to go to Annie’s. Want to come?”

            “Sure.” They walked out together and it had started to rain. Dex had checked the forecast that morning, though, like he always did, so he pulled out his umbrella and held it over Bitty and himself. “Always prepared, huh? Were you a Boy Scout?” Bitty asked, teasing, and Dex snorted.

            “No, just a Poindexter. If you’re not prepared, it’s your own fault, and you can’t complain.” Dex leaned in a little, like he was sharing a secret. “Poindexters love to complain.” Bitty giggled a little, shaking his head.

            Once inside Annie’s, Dex put away the umbrella and they got on line. After they ordered, Bitty waved away Dex’s wallet, saying, “Those tadpoles rake up fines like it’s a race and there’s no new appliances to buy, so might as well enjoy the spoils.” Over the summer, Jack used his considerable means to replace any and all of the old appliances in the Haus, and he’d asked Dex to make a list of any other repairs that needed to be done. Dex was still adding to it.

            They found a seat near the back, waiting hopefully for the rain to let up, and ate quietly. Bitty liked the apple turnovers they had here, even if he swore his Moomaw’s were ten times better, and Dex enjoyed his croissant by ripping pieces off and popping them in his mouth. He sent a picture to Nursey, asking if he wanted anything, and Nursey responded with yes but no other specifications. Dex sighed, but he felt the smile on his face no matter how resolutely he ignored it.

            Bitty talked about Jack, and these horrible new pants he bought that literally burn Bitty’s retinas to look at, and, “You’d really think the son of a model would have better fashion sense, but no. Lord, it’s a good thing I love him.” Dex listened to it all happily, letting the familiarity of the coffee house and Bitty’s voice melt away the excess energy from practice.

            Within thirty minutes, they’d finished their food, and the rain hadn’t let up, so they walked back to the Haus under the umbrella again, side by side. “…and I’m still not sure what I’m going to be doing after graduation. Of course, I’d love to write a cookbook, maybe, or be picked up by a network, or, ooh, open my own bakery, but I can’t decide on anything, and, of course, I need to graduate first, and this thesis is kicking my butt, let me tell you…”

            Dex hummed, pulling the to-go bag with Nursey’s strawberry scones in it closer to his body to keep them from getting wet.

            “Anyway, I’ve talked about myself this whole time. How’ve you been, honey? Any ideas for after college is over?” Bitty looked up at him, grinning a bit cheekily, as anyone in college knew how horrible a question that was to ask.

            Dex shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’ve been enjoying comp engineering better than comp sci, but I don’t know what I’d want to do with it specifically after graduating. I- I want to make money, yeah, but I also- I want to find something I’m passionate about, you know?”

            Bity nodded and leaned into him, humming a little. “You seem to enjoy hockey a decent amount,” he said, a sneaky smile at his lips. “Maybe you could keep going with that.”

            Dex scoffed, a bit rudely. “Come on, Bits, I’m good for div one, but the NHL? That’s, like, Tater and- Evgeni Malkin. I’m not at their level.”

            Bitty just hummed again, skeptical. “I don’t know, hun. I’m sure that if you wanted something that bad, you’d find any way to get it.” He looked up at Dex significantly at that, and Dex didn’t know if they were strictly talking about the impossibility of him going into the NHL or something else. He felt his cheeks flush regardless, and he grumbled and pushed Bitty lightly out of the safety of the umbrella. Bitty squawked loudly and hit at Dex’s arm, calling him a dozen variations of nasty Southern insults that just had Dex giggling.

            Once they got back to the Haus, Bitty went to his room, presumably to talk to Jack, who usually had lunch breaks around this time. Dex went up to his and Nursey’s room, dropping the to-go bag onto the desk, where Nursey was staring, unmoving, at his laptop screen. Dex pulled off his jacket and then grabbed for a sweatshirt, finding Nursey’s instead of his own. It looked clean, so he pulled it on anyway and laid down on his bunk, sighing. With all the energy from practice dissipated he just felt tired.

            “Just take a nap,” Nursey said, voice muffled from the bits of strawberry scone in his mouth. “I’ll wake you up for class.”

            “It’s at-”

            “I know, I know, just sleep.” Dex didn’t know if he imagined the hand in his hair, petting soothingly, or if it was real, but he fell into sleep softly, content.

 

*~*~*

 

            Halloween had always been a big deal in the Haus, at least while Dex had been there. Holster and Ransom always threw a Spookikegster, which was basically the same as a regular kegster but with more candy and weirder costumes. Dex had learned, through trial and error, that unsuitable costumes, in Ransom and Holster’s eyes, would result in uncomfortable and annoying circumstances. In his frog year, when he’d shown up with a shirt that’d read “Costume” Holster and Ransom had plied him with tub juice and then written ASS on his forehead in black permanent marker once he’d passed out. The next year, he’d tried to get away with his jersey and a stick, but that’d only led to Ransom and Holster checking him into the wall every time they saw him.

            His junior year, Dex decided he was safe. Holster and Ransom hadn’t said anything in the group chat about stopping by for Spookikegster, which Ollie and Wicks were planning all on their own. They hadn’t quite reached Ransom and Holster level kegsters yet, but they were steadily getting there, and Dex was sure Spookikegster 2016 would be sw’awesome. So, armed with the knowledge that he’d be safe, he dressed in one of his regular flannels, jeans, and then looped his tool belt around his waist, and slipped his cheapest hammer and screwdriver into the pockets. With this, he made his way downstairs to help set up.

            About an hour or so into the party, Dex was chatting pleasantly with Farmer in the dining room, leaning against the wall as the beer pong game went on in front of them, when several things happened in quick succession.

            One, Lardo walked into the room, dressed in a complete Batman costume, abs and everything, and simply held her hand out. The kid standing at the pong table just handed over the ball wordlessly and she reclaimed her rightful place on the throne.

            Two, Shitty, wearing a scarily accurate Elle Woods costume, complete with a fake dog in his pink purse, sighed into the room after Lardo and made heart eyes at her as she completely destroyed a freshman.

            Three, Ransom and Holster entered the room, dressed as Captain America and the Winter Soldier, respectively, and their eyes caught on Dex simultaneously, mouths widening into grins in a terrifying imitation of creepy twins from horror films.

            Four, the people playing pong yelled in outrage as two former NCAA d-men attacked a current NCAA d-man and wrestled his shirt off his back, leaving Dex cold and shirtless and, as they promptly christened him, a “sexy handyman”.

            Despite the renovations, the Haus was still drafty, and the cool autumn air against his skin made him shiver relentlessly. He didn’t appreciate being shirtless in public, didn’t like exposing more of his freckles and quick-to-flush skin than he had to. He doubted that he actually fulfilled the title of his costume, as he was sure he looked more like a handyman who’d lost a fight with a homeless man and was definitely going to lose his job for indecency. He knew he could go upstairs and grab another shirt, but he also knew that Holster and Ransom would take any new shirt from him, which was an interaction he didn’t want to repeat.

            His next plan was to just stay in the dining room, which didn’t get nearly as much foot traffic as the living room, for the rest of the night, but then Chowder showed up, drunk and giggly, and Farmer went off with him. They were both handsy drunks, so Dex opted not to follow, and then Lardo told him to play or get out to “make room for fresh meat” and Dex decided to leave before he started drinking to combat the cold.

            Walking into the living room was a bit of a shock, as the music was somewhat muffled through the walls, and the force of it with no barrier was disorienting. It was packed, wall to wall, with a remix of Thriller playing. Every body was pressed up against at least two others, sweaty and gyrating and palpably horny. The warmth was attractive, but Dex really didn’t want to be groped without even a shirt to protect him. He turned and went into the kitchen, knowing it would be empty as Ollie and Wicks had put the drinks table in the front hallway for optimal drinkage, or that was how they’d put it. Typically, around this time, Bitty would be drunk baking something and mumbling about Jack’s butt, but Jack was here tonight. The Falcs hadn’t had a game and the practice in the morning was optional, so Jack had come up to Samwell dressed as Danny Zuko. Which, unfortunately for Jack’s sanity, meant Bitty was in leather pants, heels, and a shoulder-less black blouse, looking as stunning and sultry as Sandy. From this, Dex inferred that the kitchen would be empty for the night while Bitty’s room would be heavily occupied.

            Dex knew there was pie dough chilling in the fridge, and he knew Bitty had just gotten a bunch of apples at the market the other day, so he started the recipe for an apple pie in order to keep up the tradition of drunk baking. He might have been a bit drunker than he’d thought (who knew what Ollie and Wicks had put into the tub juice this time around) because he spent the entire time he mixed talking to the electric mixer.

            “I’m sorry Bitty isn’t here to use you,” he said, petting the sides of the bowl sympathetically as the mixer whirred. “He just loves Jack a whole bunch and they never ever get to see each other. But they’re really really happy, I know, ‘cause they both look like idiots whenever they’re in the room together. And the whole thing with the kiss and shit, you know, it was way harder on them than it was on me. Jack had to deal with- still has to deal with so much shit and I know Bits and his parents aren’t okay, or normal.”

            Dex was quiet for a bit as he grabbed the dough out of the fridge and started rolling it out to line the tin with. Then, to the rolling pin, he said, “I don’t know if we’ll ever be normal again. If- if I even want to. Normal was high school and I fucking hated that shit. I don’t- what’s the big fucking deal, anyway? So I like guys. Like, how does that change anything? I’d still be just as- just as happy.”

            Dex turned and grabbed the pie tin from the drying rack and started pushing the dough against its sides. “Is it the kids?” he asked the tin. “Because I’m pretty sure my kids would be a helluva lot better if I married a dude, ‘cause, like, I’d get to pick half its genes, right? With a surrogate? And Nursey would be the dad, ‘cause he’s so pretty…” Dex trailed off, losing his train of thought.

            He removed the mixing bowl from the mixer and began to scrape the filling into the lined tin. “And how the fuck is fucking a dude wrong when it feels just as good as f-”

            “What the _fuck_.”

            Dex turned to see Nursey standing in the doorway to the kitchen, eyes wide and tub juice about to spill over his hand where he held the cup too horizontally for stability. It reminded Dex of the bowl in his hands and he cursed, turning back around to see he’d missed the tin with the last bit. He scooped what he could into the tin and then licked the rest off his fingers, turning to Nursey. “What’s up?” he asked around his pointer and middle fingers.

            Nursey stared for a few moments. Dex assumed it was because he was drunk, and he wondered who was on Nursey Patrol. He really hoped it wasn’t himself, because he was not in a state to watch after a drunk Nursey. Nursey shook his head. “Was looking for you,” he said, mumbling, his eyes on Dex’s bare chest. “Holster said you- you had a present for me. Or he did and you had it. I don’t know.”

            Dex shrugged, chest pinking up under the attention. “I don’t have a present.” He gestured behind himself with the hand not in his mouth. “I have pie.”

            “I like pie,” Nursey responded. Drunk Nursey wasn’t overly eloquent. He stumbled over to where Dex was standing, close enough to feel, and Dex shivered. “Are you cold?”

            Dex shrugged. “If I put a shirt on, Holster and Ransom will just steal it.”

            Nursey’s forehead wrinkled. “Why?”

            “Apparently handyman is too boring of a costume. Sexy handyman, however.” He gestured at himself and then blushed further, and he watched as it nearly hit his navel. God, he was so pale. He heard a noise like someone choking and looked up, alarmed, to Nursey wearing a stricken expression. “Nursey? Are you okay?”

            Nursey shook his head, then nodded. “Yeah, just- water.” He turned to grab a water bottle out of the fridge and Dex took in his costume. He’d seen it briefly, earlier, during set-up. He’d borrowed it from the drama department. It was supposedly a period-accurate costume from the early 1800s, specifically from England, even more specifically, upper class. Dex knew he was supposed to be Mr. Darcy from _Pride and Prejudice_ , which made him blush to remember, as Nursey had teased him before dressing earlier, saying, “I still need a Lizzie Bennet if you wanna put on the dress.”

            Dex considered how drastically different their costumes were and wondered if that was a metaphor for how they weren’t ever going to end up together, but that just made him sad, so he continued to work on his pie. Nursey watched, sitting on the countertop as Dex laid the remaining dough over the top of the pie, crimped the edges, added air holes, and then slipped it into the oven. When he straightened, Nursey smiled at him, and Dex was helpless to return it. “How long ‘til it’s done?” Nursey asked.

            “I don’t have Bitty’s magic, so about forty-five minutes.”

            Nursey hummed, a smirk pulling at his lips. “What can we do for forty-five minutes?”

            “I dunno,” Dex said. “We could go back to the party.”

            “Or,” Nursey said, leaning forwards, into Dex’s space, “we could do something just us two.”

            Dex swallowed, harsh. He wasn’t nearly drunk enough for this. “Like-like what?”

            Nursey’s grin widened and he leaned impossibly closer and-

            Holster and Ransom burst into the room, their arms filled with rolls of toilet paper. “We’re playing mummy!” Holster yelled.

            “We’re gonna wrap up the tad-babies, spin ‘em around a few times, and make ‘em race! Make your bets now, people!” With Ransom’s declaration, they left the room, and Nursey and Dex shared a look before scrambling after them.

 

*~*~*

 

            Dex was working on his calculus assignment, hating life, and wishing he could be downstairs in the kitchen with Bitty but knowing that he had to get this stupid thing done. Then Nursey came into their dorm, steps heavy before he collapsed onto his bed, sighing deeply. Dex glanced back at him, cataloguing the little things. He didn’t have his backpack, so he wasn’t coming from class, and he wasn’t visibly wet, so Dex assumed he hadn’t tripped into the Pond again. He had his hand thrown over his eyes, which meant he was exhausted with the world, but his feet were twitching against the hardwood, which was also frustration. It wasn’t anything specific Dex could pinpoint, like writer’s block (missing pen stains on his hand) or a dick at the dining hall (no food stains on his pants), and it annoyed him that he couldn’t figure it out.

            “What’s wrong now?” Dex asked, trying to seem annoyed at having his study space invaded. Nursey was usually out with his hipster friends at this time, but Dex didn’t mind the intrusion, not really. Calculus was frustrating and only rewarding about four percent of the time and he’d much rather talk to Nursey than do that. Not that he could admit that aloud.

            “Just lots’a stuff,” Nursey said, mumbling. Dex glanced back at his laptop before turning around fully.

            “What kind of stuff?” he asked.

            Nursey flapped his hand in the air lazily. “Just stuff.”

            Dex frowned at him, leaning forward in his chair. “Nursey, what stuff?”

            Nursey sighed. “Just, like, campus security carding me all the time. Fucking Greg laughing at the idea of me writing poetry. This girl pulling her shit into her lap when I got on the campus shuttle.” He moved his shoulders in an approximation of a shrug, mussing up his blankets. “Just a bunch of shit.” Dex frowned at him. He didn’t completely understand what Nursey meant, but he’d noticed how, many times when the hockey team got rowdy, it was only Ransom or Nursey who got carded, and he’d seen people shy away from them on the subway in New York City over the summer, like Nursey was scary or something (an idea that was nearly laughable to Dex, who knew what a clumsy dork Nursey was).

            It all reminded Dex of what it was like back home, where everyone knew he was off and treated him accordingly, but it was worse for Nursey, he knew, because Dex’s sexuality wasn’t immediately apparent to the people around him. “That sucks,” Dex offered lamely.

            Nursey huffed, short. “No shit.”

            Dex wanted to say something more, but didn’t know what, and what came out was, “I don’t get how you’re so chill all the time with all that shit going on.” It was meant to be joking, lighten the mood maybe, as they both knew how unchill Nursey actually was, but Dex knew as the words left his lips they wouldn’t come out that way.

            Nursey shifted up onto his elbows at that, eyes now visible and focused on Dex incredulously. “Seriously? You’re focusing on chill?”

            Dex was flustered. “I don’t know, I- if I was you, I’d be angry, not- not chill.” He should have just apologized, he knew it as he said it.

            “Of course I’m fucking angry,” Nursey said, his body tense. “But angry black boys are dangerous, so I’ll take chill over death, fuck you very much.” He was panting a little, then, and Dex wondered if he’d stopped himself from saying this to Dex before. Dex swallowed, hard, and felt stupid and guilty and every inch the white boy he was. It had never occurred to him- he knew Nursey’s chill had been fabricated, but he’d never thought-

            He stood, slowly, unsure of his movements, and made his way over to Nursey’s bed. Nursey watched him, eyes careful, as he sat on the side of Nursey’s bed, tentatively reached out and took his hand. He squeezed it once, and said, “I’m sorry.”

            Nursey stared at their hands and deflated, resigned. “It’s not- don’t be, alright? It’s not- I shouldn’t have gone off on you like that.”

            “Don’t make apologies for me, okay? It’s not fair.” Dex watched Nursey’s eyes drift back to his face. “I need to- be better than that. And I’m sorry for anything I’ve done to make it harder on you.” He quirked the corner of his mouth upwards. “If it happens again, you have my permission to punch me.”

            Nursey stared at him a moment or two before smiling, just a small curve. “Wouldn’t want to break my hand on your thick skull,” he said, and Dex let out the air in his lungs. Nursey glanced over at Dex’s laptop, where his assignment still sat, waiting. “You want to watch Broad City?”

            Dex was thankful for both the change in subject and the reprieve from his homework. “Sure.”

            Nursey grabbed his laptop off the floor and they sat next to each other on the bed, backs against the wall and thighs pressed together. Somehow, their hands ended up together once again, and neither of them said anything.

 

*~*~*

 

            When Dex walked into the kitchen the Monday afternoon before Thanksgiving break, Bitty had filled three counters with pies, muffins, and cookies, but wasn’t currently in the kitchen. Dex peered at a tray of snickerdoodles and scooped up two, continuing over to the kitchen table to drop his bag down onto. He pulled out his laptop and turned it on to look up bus schedules from Mass to Maine. He’d left it later than he usually would have. For all of the previous breaks, he’d had tickets and travel plans ready at least a week in advance, his bags packed two nights ahead, and kept up a constant correspondence with his family and the weather app on his phone to ensure that nothing changed.

            This year, he’d waited. He spoke to his parents infrequently, usually over text. JJ called, sometimes, but he wasn’t very consistent. His cousins around his age talked to him every once in a while, but his aunts and uncles said next to nothing. He hadn’t known if he was welcome for Thanksgiving, didn’t know if he’d want to go even if he was. He’d found himself hoping for a storm warning so he would have a justified reason for staying in Samwell for Hausgiving. Bitty was staying, Dex knew, and Jack was coming up to spend it with him. A few others were staying that Dex knew of, like Ford and Chowder and Nursey. It wouldn’t be outrageous to stay here.

            But things hadn’t gotten better since the summer, and he knew if he left it too long it would be impossible to fix. So, barring any extreme weather conditions (there was rain predicted, but nothing heavy enough to derail the bus schedules), he knew he’d be in Maine for Thanksgiving, sitting at a table full of family who might or might not love him. He was sure he could survive it for a long weekend. He could be quiet, he could lock himself somewhere for a few days and be the person they wanted him to be. A few days wouldn’t hurt, right? And then maybe they’d see him as they had before, maybe they’d love him unconditionally again- as long as he didn’t express that one deal breaker trait of his.

            Dex stared at his computer screen, thoughts and anxieties swirling around his head, and he was so wrapped up in it that he didn’t notice Bitty was in the room until he said, “My mama is coming up to visit.”

            Dex looked up from his laptop to see Bitty standing at the kitchen island, looking off into space, hands curled protectively around a mug of something. It was the Falconers mug Shitty had left here after staying with Lardo one night, with the chip in the side, and Dex watched as Bitty’s thumb brushed against the rougher, broken part repeatedly, as if ensuring it was still there. Bitty said, “Coach- he can’t come,” with the banality of discussing the color of the wall. “Homecoming. But he said- maybe Christmas.”

            Dex watched him, his rigid stance and distracted gaze, and was confused. He asked, “That’s good, right?” trying to sound hopeful, for Bitty’s sake or his own. He stopped breathing for a second when Bitty looked over at him, smiling even though his eyes were overwhelmingly sad.

            “I think it is, yes, but.” Bitty shook his head and looked down, seemingly surprised to see the mug in between his fingers. He pulled his hands from the cup and placed them, palm down, on the island, pushing into it, straining his muscles. “Everything has been different since- what happened.” He began tracing something into the counter with his finger. Dex watched, and his own fingers twitched at his computer keys. “She- she doesn’t know how to talk to me. I think- I know she’s trying, but I think she’s so scared to say the wrong thing or ask the wrong question that she- she doesn’t know how to be my mama anymore.”

            Dex sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, biting at it as he watched Bitty draw aimlessly, desperately, into the counter. He stood from the table and walked over. Bitty didn’t look up, even as Dex reached out, slowly, and took one of Bitty’s hands in his own, squeezing once. Quiet, he asked, “Have you talked to her about it?”

            Bitty opened his mouth to say something, paused, and then shook his head. His free hand stilled on the countertop. “It took months to even get here,” he said, a desperate tinge to his voice. “She was so- she was hurt that I hadn’t told her, that she’d had to find out with everyone else, that I’d been lying for so long.” He ducked his head even further, squeezing his eyes shut.

            “You know she’s probably hurting for you, too,” Dex said, remembering what those sites had said about parents adjusting to LGBT+ children. “The thought of you having to hide yourself for so long doesn’t make her feel good. And it is a big adjustment for people like- like our families.” The websites had said it was natural, especially for particularly isolated (that had been the word they’d used for “conservative” or “ignorant” or “bigoted”) families, for it to take some time for things to adjust. Dex hadn’t known if it was just his predisposition to anger or the wording the website used, but it had frustrated him to no end, at the time.

            Bitty choked out a laugh, bitter, and Dex assumed he felt the same way. “Well I haven’t felt good either, actually, and you’d think a mother would-” He sniffed harshly and shook his head. “I know I shouldn’t get- I know I can’t be mad at her, but, Lord.” He shook his head again and wiped at his face with his free hand.

            Suddenly, Dex was angry. Angry for himself, at his parents for their ability to rescind on their end of this relationship simply because he was queer, at his family for isolating him like he was a dead cousin or a broken aunt or something to never speak about again. He was mad for Jack, living his whole life with the expectation of the closet, of stifling himself even when he was supposed to be living his dream, being asked questions about his sexuality in post-game interviews like that had fuck all to do with anything. He was furious for Bitty, sitting in his kitchen crying because his parents couldn’t fucking see he was the same fucking person and-

            “You can be,” he said, shaking with it, and Bitty looked up, frowning. “You can get mad. You should be mad. None of this- it’s all infuriating. They act like- like you’re a different person, like they’ve never known you, really, and they’re hurt like we’re the ones who chose it? Like we wanted to shut them out? Fuck that. If this- if all this is them dealing with their guilt at having forced us into being people we weren’t, then they should fucking get over themselves because it has fuck all to do with them, we don’t need their guilt we need their _support_ and-”

            He was panting too much to continue and Bitty stared up at him, eyes wide and wet, his hand still in Dex’s, now squeezing back. He pulled Dex into a hug, tight and painful, and Dex curled himself down so he could feel Bitty’s arms across his shoulders, the kind of hug Dex used to get from his mother when he came home after too long away, and he started crying, silently, into the hug, and Bitty did too. “You can be mad, hun,” Bitty said, between hiccups, rubbing kindly at Dex’s shoulder blades. “We can be mad, we can grieve for ourselves, it’s alright.”

            And it wasn’t, but it was better than it’d been.

 

*~*~*

 

            JJ was waiting in Portland when Dex got off the bus with his duffle bag. He squeezed the back of Dex’s neck once and said nothing before getting into his car. Dex threw his bag in the back and slipped into the passenger seat. As JJ drove, some shitty rap Dex didn’t care for playing on the speakers, Dex tapped at his leg, aimless patterns, wondering what could be waiting for him at home. He didn’t know what to expect. If worse came to worst, he’d sleep on JJ’s couch for the rest of the break, but Dex really hoped that wouldn’t happen.

            His phone buzzed in his pocket when they were about five minutes out from home, and Dex pulled it out to see a Snapchat notification from Nursey. It was a picture of him, sitting in bed, grinning. He’d obviously just woken up, never woke up early if he didn’t have to, and sleep still curled in the corners of his eyes, lines pressed into his face from the pillow. The caption said, “miss you already dex-a-ling-a-ding-dong”, and Dex couldn’t help but snort at the name.

            “Who’s that?” JJ glanced away from the road to look at Dex’s phone, and Dex told him to focus. He did, but he shuffled in his seat, a determined look on his face. “That the kid you’re gay for?”

            Dex winced and let it slide. “It’s my roommate.”

            “That Nurse kid, right?” At Dex’s affirmative noise, he said, “Don’t you like him? That’s the one, right?”

            “I’m not- we’re not talking about boys, J.” The idea would have been laughable if JJ hadn’t been sitting there, ready to listen to Dex wax about Nursey’s ass, or something equally horrifying. Still, the thought of it made a warm feeling burst in Dex’s chest. JJ was _trying_. With actual _words_. Despite himself, Dex found that the feeling in his chest could even be called hope.

            By the time they got to their parents’ house, the silence had resumed, thankfully. No matter how nice it was that JJ was trying, there was no way in hell Dex was going to gush about Nursey to the brother that had once given him a dead arm for saying, “I love you,” to his girlfriend in front of him.

            JJ pulled into the driveway and turned off the engine, and Dex let himself have a deep breath before pushing open the door. By the cars in the driveway, he guessed that his ma had already left for work, while his dad was still home. He almost knocked before pushing open the front door, which he’d never done before in his life, and the hesitation hung heavy in his stomach.

            “Dad!” JJ called into the house. “I got Will!”

            Dex wanted to go upstairs and dump his stuff into his old room, but he waited. Dad came out of the dining room, dressed for work but with his reading glasses on which meant he had been reading the paper. He smiled and it didn’t feel stilted. He pulled Dex into a hug, warm and encompassing, and Dex melted into it like he was five again and a hug from his father could cure any hurt. “It’s good to have you back, kid,” Dad said, quiet, and Dex squeezed him back. It was… nice. Really nice.

            Dad had to leave for work soon after, and JJ did too, so Dex was left alone in his childhood home. He’d been alone a lot as a kid. JJ had always been out with friends or a girl and his parents worked late, so after hockey, Dex would come home to an empty house, do homework, relax. He’d liked the quiet back when he was a kid, such a stark contrast to being smothered by family or stuck between yelling children at school. Now, it only made him miss the Haus more. The absence of Bitty’s music or the squeaking of the floorboards as Chowder did his morning stretches or the groans of the staircase during Ollie and Wicks’ rush to get breakfast first, it seemed louder than any kegster could be, and Dex didn’t like it, so he went for a run.

            He was sweaty when he’d finished and had forgotten to get a water bottle before he left. He knew his parents wouldn’t have one in the fridge, so he decided to stop by the grocery store. He snapped a selfie before walking into the store, sending it to Nursey with the caption “I need my water boy” and hoped it didn’t sound too much like “I miss you”. He’d reached the aisle with the cold drinks by the time Nursey responded. It was a blurry picture of Nursey, in bed, presumably, going by all the fuzzy white of his comforter, with the caption “fffuc u”.

            Dex snorted, staring at the screen so he wasn’t looking where he was walking. He bumped into someone and said, reflexively, “Oh, sorry,” and then looked up to see the guy he fought outside the bar over the summer.

            Any injuries Dex had given him hadn’t lasted this long, thankfully. Dex never found out what happened to him. He’d known that he had gone too hard, half because of the drinking and half because of his anger. He’d regretted doing it ever since, knowing that he couldn’t be the person who reacted with his fists anymore, but seeing the guy still made Dex angry, despite himself.

            Dex was prepared to move around the guy and continue to the check out, but the guy moved in Dex’s way again, stopping him. His eyes were steely, his grin sharp. “Long time no see, fag.”

            Dex stared back at him, feeling fire in his veins. “Do you really want to do this again?”

            “You couldn’t finish it the first time,” the guy said, cocky, like Dex didn’t fracture his orbital bone. “Not like a real man would have.”

            Dex almost laughed. “Really? Insulting my masculinity? That’s all you got? Because that didn’t keep me from breaking your face.”

            The guy’s smug expression turned sour. “Sober I could kill you.”

            Dex let himself grow to his full height, let his shoulders broaden, and his voice went quiet-deadly. “You really want to test your theory?”

            The guy stared at him, fear in his eyes but not backing down, and, in that moment, despite everything Dex had learned, he had wanted it, wanted blood on his hands, adrenaline in his veins, a _fight_. Then-

            “Will?” Dex looked over to see his Uncle Brian standing in the aisle, a basket in his hand, frowning at the pair of them. Brian’s eyes flickered to the guy from high school. “Todd?”

            The guy, Todd, nodded at Brian, respectful. “Brian.” His eyes flickered between Brian and Will, noting the resemblances between them, the hair, the freckles, the frown. He quietly retreated, shrinking down a bit, eyes losing their flair.

            “What’s going on here?” Brian took a step forward, closer to them, and Dex wondered, if he told the truth, which side Brian would be on. There was a picture Dex had on his desk in his childhood home of his baptism. Brian was his Godfather, and in the picture, he was holding Dex in his arms, the smile on his face blinding. He’d once promised to teach Dex to love, promised to care for him, to protect him. He’d promised it to Dex’s parents and God, and even Dex himself, smile holding nothing but joy when he looked at his nephew. Dex wondered if that, too, would be conditional.

            “We went to high school together,” Dex said, letting his shoulders relax into something casual. The water bottle was too cold in his hand, painful against his skin. “Just catching up.”

            Brian stared at them both for longer, a minute or so, and Dex held his breath. Finally, he said, “You’d better be getting to work, Todd.” It was a reprimand, but a quiet one.

            Todd nodded, once, ducking his head. “Yes, sir,” he said, and walked off. Dex assumed that they worked together, maybe, Brian being Todd’s boss. Brian had just been promoted from foreman to manager in the construction company he worked for, and they always needed young guys on the job. Dex had worked there for a few months, years back. Back then, Brian’s wide smile after a hard day’s work was the only acceptance Dex had needed.

            Brian looked at Dex, expression closed off. His eyes criticized Dex in one sweep and it hurt against Dex’s skin. He asked, “You need a ride home?”

            Dex didn’t, but he took the offering, knowing that if he declined, he’d only make it worse. He paid for his water bottle with money he’d slipped between his phone case and phone and, as Brian paid for his own groceries, he saw that Nursey had sent him another snap, this one of a pumpkin stress-pie that Dex sighed at. _Eat a piece for me_ , he texted back, forgoing a picture. He followed Brian back to his car, helped load the groceries into the trunk, and got into the passenger seat, feeling much less welcome in this car than JJ’s.

            His house wasn’t far from the grocery store, so Brian didn’t wait long after pulling out of the parking lot before saying, “John didn’t tell me you were coming back for Thanksgiving.”

            Dex looked out the window at the small town he’d known so well his whole life. The bakery on Main St. had moved. Now it was a stationary store. Dex said, “I always come back for holidays.” _Nothing’s changed_ , he nearly screamed.

            “They don’t deserve what you’re doing.” Brian turned off Main St. onto Elm, where one of Dex’s high school girlfriends lived. The beach was closer, and Dex could smell it even though the windows were closed. He said nothing. “Shaming them, making them feel guilty. Just because you-”

            “ _I_ never planned on telling them,” Dex said, quick and furious. “You all were the ones who made it weird.”

            “Your fucking captain kissed a guy on fucking television! What were we supposed to think?” Brian turned again, and Dex had no connection to this street, just that he’d grown up with it.

            “I go to the Gay Ivy!” Dex yelled, then swallowed. At a normal volume, he said, “A quarter of its population is queer. Of course I know gay people.”

            Brian shook his head, expression pinched. “That’s what this is, isn’t it? You’re not- you’re a Poindexter, you’re not-” He shook his head again, agitated. “You kids think it’s _cool_ nowadays to be- to do that. You’ll realize soon it’s just all that messing with your head.”

            Dex huffed, a quick, bitter sound, and said, “Sorry to ruin your theory, Uncle Brian, but I liked dick way before I liked Samwell.”

            Brian stopped short, breaking, looking at Dex horrified and furious, and Dex left the car, walking the rest of the way to his house, not looking back, or at the town around him, once.

 

*~*~*

 

            On Sunday, Nursey picked Dex up from the bus depot near Samwell. Dex told him he could just Uber home, but Nursey insisted, and as Dex climbed into the passenger seat of Nursey’s stupid expensive car instead of a stranger’s backseat, he was grateful. They greeted one another, but said nothing as the journey started, and Dex sat still in his seat, trying to sort through his emotions. He felt- shaky, but not bad. It was confusing.

            When they got back to the Haus, Nursey went to hang out with Chowder and the Tadpoles in the living room, and Dex went straight for the kitchen. Bitty was there, cleaning up from breakfast, presumably. It was too early for pie (“It’s _never_ too early for pie,” Bitty would have said, scandalized, if Dex voiced that thought) and he hadn’t eaten breakfast before getting on the bus, so Dex rooted around in the fridge for some bacon, which he shoved in the oven, and eggs, which he began to whisk with milk in a bowl.

            “How was Hausgiving?” Dex asked, when he’d finished whisking. He located the butter and reached towards the utensil drawer for a knife.

            “Good,” Bitty said, humming a little. “Everyone was on their best behavior for Mama. She- I think she liked it.” Dex pulled a saucepan out from a cabinet and set it up on the stove, turning on the burner. “You know the boys, made her laugh like crazy.”

            “That’s good.” Dex dropped a glob of butter into the pan and watched it melt for a few seconds. Then he turned to grab the bowl of whisked eggs. Dex turned to look at Bitty and he was smiling at the plate he was washing.

            Bitty hummed. “It isn’t- the Haus ain’t nothing like a good proper Southern home is supposed to be. But- it’s got its charm. And Mama saw that. Different doesn’t mean bad, you know?” He turned to give Dex a smile and Dex felt it melt away all the leftover iciness from his break. Dex smiled back, then realized the butter was sizzling, so he poured the eggs into the pan. Bitty laughed a little and said, “And as long as I still cook like a maniac, nothing could change too much. Oh, we baked and baked. Couldn’t see the countertops by the time we’d finished. I love cooking with you, hun, but no one beats my mama.”

            Dex grinned as he listened to Bitty talk about his holiday, all the things he and his mama talked about and did together, and her and Jack interacting and how well they got on. He watched his eggs cook and listened to happiness and felt it all mixing together in his chest, easing his nerves. He popped toast into the toaster just as Bitty asked, “So how was your break, hun?”

            His break was… a lot. He had a big family, which was always a little too much, noise and emotion and silence at the same time, but with so many family members came so many different opinions. With Uncle Brian came his cousin Abby who was really into history and shared a bunch of random facts about LGBT people in history, like King James and his gay bible, or lesbian cross-dressing pirates falling in love. For every aunt that looked at him, stricken, not knowing what to say, there was a little cousin pulling him into a make-believe game about a princess who falls in love with a dragon ( _who is also a girl_ , whispered wetly against Dex’s ear, _but don’t tell anybody, it’s a secret_ ). And for all the times that his parents stared at him like they didn’t know who he was anymore when they thought he wasn’t looking, they hugged him or smiled at him when he was, and all the broken pieces filled in the cracks left from summer, and Dex had felt loved.

            So Dex said, “It was weird. But nice, I think.”

            And Bitty raised his eyebrows at that, wanting more, and it all came tumbling out. He talked about the summer, when things got tense and everyone thought things about him without asking _him_ , how he never really got to come out and how he still hadn’t, how it had felt to be mourned while he was there with them, how his brother’s support had felt like everything and still not enough. He talked about their stilted conversations since then, how he felt so detached from everything and hadn’t known how to fix it, or if he’d wanted to. He talked about Samwell and being better and that fucking Todd guy and all of it, in a rush, sentences sticking together and overlapping as they rushed out of him.

            Bitty listened to it all, nodding and frowning and smiling at things in parts, and when he finished the dishes, he buttered the toast and pulled the bacon from the oven, all cooked. Dex slid the eggs onto the toast and pressed the bacon on top, forming a sandwich. He talked through it all, desperate to unload the things he’d been keeping in for so long. He sat down at the kitchen island and talked right up until he took a bite from his breakfast. It tasted like relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it! I do promise it ends happily even if it doesn't seem like it right now.  
> If you did like it, drop a comment or a kudo, as it really does make me happy. The final chapter should be up in a few days, so check in if you'd like.  
> Also, the Halloween part where they literally almost fuck until Ransom and Holster ensure a slow burn, I may or may not have a NSFW alternate-ending following that interaction if y'all would appreciate it?  
> Thanks for reading!


	5. step five - enjoy it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nursey sighed, looking out the window, and Dex rolled his eyes. “What? Rain isn’t good for your poetry?” He knew how frequently Nursey wrote during autumn, which he assumed was some weird bond he had with the leaves, and he assumed that winter froze his inspiration, or something ridiculous like that.  
> Nursey flicked a sugar packet at Dex’s hand, but it bounced off lamely and Nursey frowned. “Nah, I just want it to snow.”  
> “If it snows, the roadie will be postponed, and I want to kick some Yale ass,” Dex said, sipping his coffee.  
> Nursey offered him a fist bump in solidarity, but said, “Of course, but still. It doesn’t have to be too heavy a snow. Just a light one.” He glanced outside at the rain once again. “Don’t you like snow?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're here! Thank you to everyone who followed this through with me, I very dearly appreciate you. I enjoyed writing this fic, and all of your feedback made the experience even greater.  
> For this chapter, I think we're actually free of homophobia warnings, woohoo! We do having some anxiety references, but I think that's it for this one.  
> I really do hope you enjoy the ending. :)

            Despite Bitty’s fretting, Holster and Ransom managed to set up a pong table in Randall Robinson’s living room, and now Lardo and Dex (her chosen teammate for the night in Farmer’s absence) were schooling Poots and Snowy. It wasn’t what Dex had expected from a Falconer’s New Year’s Eve party. A part of him had been expecting something like the trustee dinners they sometimes had to go to to encourage people and alumni to donate to the hockey team. Those were stuffy and tiring, and usually consisted of hors d’oeuvres Dex couldn’t pronounce the names of, boring speeches, and vaguely upsetting comments from donators.

            The Falcs party was nothing like that. Some of the rookies set up NHL on the PlayStation for people to use and argue over, the food was all finger stuff like pigs in a blanket or cheese and crackers, and all of the Falconers were fun and nice and interesting. Dex was sure the only thing that could make it better was if Chowder and Farmer were here, but they promised to Facetime during “fake midnight” (which was how they referred to the East Coast time) which Dex took as consolation.

            Playing pong with Lardo, however, got to be vaguely stressful after a while, having to keep up with her perfection, and when Poots and Snowy stumbled away, plastered, and Tater brandished a bottle of vodka and challenged them to _vodka pong_ , Dex noped out of there. Lardo just called him a coward and stared Tater down, eyes mean. Dex did not wait around to see if Tater died or not, sure that he would be blamed if such a thing did happen in his presence. Instead, he made his way to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water and calm down a little. He wasn’t the designated driver (Jack was, also was tonight’s host as the majority of the Samwell guests were sleeping in his apartment tonight) but he didn’t like to be too tipsy around people he didn’t know well.

            Even then, sometimes he refused to get drunk anyway. He didn’t drink over break, when he was home. He’d gone home for Christmas and things had been mixed once again. Some of his family treated him with overt kindness, almost smothering at times, and others looked at him shifty-eyed as if waiting for him to touch something and have it dissolve under his queerness. His parents had gotten better, at least, less hesitation in their smiles, like they’d finally had enough time to decide to love him fully again. The ghost of it all still stung, and he couldn’t quite convince himself that they would always love him, that it was just the idea of it was surprising, that their love wasn’t conditional. Being home for too long felt like a sunburn, quick and stinging and still peeling away to reveal the tenderness underneath weeks later.

            Maybe he’d had more to drink than he’d thought because his thoughts had turned a bit dreary. He sighed, taking another sip of water, when _Georgia fucking Martin_ just walked into the kitchen. Dex nearly choked and then stared at her, eyes wide. He’d met a couple of the Falconers before, when they’d visited the Haus or after games, but Ms. Martin ( _George_ , Jack called her, casual, like she wasn’t a fucking _Olympian_ ) had always been too busy to see them. Most likely because she was Georgia Martin and amazing and _holy shit Dex was in the room with a gold medalist_.

            Dex tried to stay as still as possible in some weird hope that she wouldn’t look over and see him freaking out, but because Dex had the worst luck in the universe, she glanced over at him and smirked, knowing exactly what he was doing. She poured her own drink at the drinks table and turned to face him, smiling warmly, if a bit teasing. “Poindexter, right?” Dex nodded jerkily. “Number 24.”

            _Holy shit Georgia Martin knows my number_. “Yeah,” he said, and it came out croaky. “First string defense.”

            Georgia nodded a little, smile mellowing into something kinder. “I’ve seen your tapes.”

            _Holy shit Georgia Martin has seen my tapes_. “Uh.” Dear Lord, he knows he’s queer or whatever and that’s like a No-No in the Bible, but please give him to strength to get through this conversation without making a complete idiot of himself. “Um.” _Fuck_.

            “If you’ve seen his tape, then you’ve seen my flawless playing, too,” someone said, and then there was an arm around his shoulders, the weight familiar, and Dex couldn’t help but sigh and lean back into Nursey for support. “Derek Nurse. Better half of this d-man pair.” Dex elbowed him in the side and Nursey pinched his shoulder back.

            Georgia smiled, because everyone was charmed by Nursey. “28, yeah. You were there.” Nursey played beautifully, half of the reason Dex was having such a good season, but there was a difference in their playing that Dex had only realized after watching their tape back. Dex played like he had nothing to lose, ready to give up every part of himself to win the game and win it well. Nursey wanted to win, no doubt in that, but he was more reserved, unwilling to sacrifice his composure even for that. Dex wondered if that was another thing he’d been given the privilege of, and it occupied his mind for a moment before he tuned back into the conversation. “… a great season so far. Everything seems to be clicking.”

            “Bitty is a sw’awesome captain,” Nursey said, smiling. “And the chemistry on ice between everyone is fire right now. We don’t wanna jinx it, but we’re feeling pretty good.”

            Georgia nodded, taking a sip of her drink. “The upperclassmen this year are really succeeding, but then again, you two have been playing well since the start.” She took another sip. Casually, she asked, “Have either of you ever thought of going pro?” and- did her eyes linger on Dex?

            Nursey laughed kindly but Dex was simply frozen, shocked. He thought back to that one, throwaway conversation with Bitty. Could he really…? Nursey said, “I’m pretty serious about writing and lit.” He squeezed Dex’s shoulders. “But Dexy here would make a great pro, wouldn’t he?” The tone in Nursey’s voice was obviously joking, but there was an underlying firmness to his syllables that hit Dex in the chest, hard. Despite his teasing, Nursey believed what he was saying.

            “I think so,” Georgia Martin, the _Olympian_ , agreed, and Dex nearly fainted.

            Someone called from the other room and Georgia turned to go and Dex remembered a promise he’d made back when Jack joined the Falcs. “Wait!” She turned back to him, alarmed, and he flushed deeply but persevered. “I have this cousin, she’s six, and her lifelong dream is to be checked by you one day.” Georgia smiled, laughter in her eyes. “Would you mind signing something for her?”

            Georgia quirked her lips for a moment, considering, and then asked, “Do you think she’s awake right now?”

            Which was how Dex ended up Facetiming Cassie at 10:47 on New Year’s Eve with Georgia Martin in the picture. Cassie screamed when she answered the phone and had to fight off a bunch of worried family members to ask, between sobs and panting, if Georgia wore the medal 24/7 and if not, _why not_? They talked for ten minutes or so, Georgia smiling and pleasant and Cassie’s face streaked with tears. Dex instantly became her favorite cousin (if he wasn’t already) and Georgia seemed not to mind doing it.

            Despite the obvious bliss the entire interaction caused, when the three of them left the kitchen, Dex felt hesitation in his chest. After leaning against a wall, by himself, figuring out what it was for a while, he found his way to Jack, who was alone for the first time in the night as Bitty was busy in the kitchen, drunk baking once again (Jack had come bearing supplies just in the case that this happened). Jack liked the quiet parts of parties, Dex knew, so he tried not to disturb him as he took a seat in the chair next to him in the formal living room, mostly empty of people except for the toddlers asleep on the sofa.

            “Hey,” Jack greeted, pleasant and tired, and Dex smiled back.

            “Hey.” He thumbed the wrapper of his water bottle, fidgeting, and looked down at his lap. He let the silence settle for a few minutes, thinking about what he wanted to say. It didn’t help much, though, because after those few minutes what came tumbling out was, “Did you talk to Georgia about me?”

            “Hmm?”

            Dex looked up, swallowing. “Because she asked me if I ever considered going pro and she knew my number and had watched my tape and-” He shook his head, looking down. “I don’t know if Bitty talked to you about it, or whatever, but I don’t need you to get me a job or anything. I know I’m not- I’m not at your level.”

            “Dex,” Jack said, and his voice was so kind that Dex risked a glance up. Jack was smiling, that small one he did when his friends made him happy. Even getting that made Dex feel better, however incrementally. He said, “George asked me about you first. She’s been looking into defensive players because Guy is probably going to retire at the end of next year and we need new blood. She found your tape and she liked your playing all on her own.”

            Dex swallowed and it dragged against his throat. “But there are so many other players, _better_ players.”

            Jack shrugged. “You are really good, Dex.” Jack had a way of saying things so blandly, so devoid of emotion, sometimes, that it invited no argument. It was simply a fact, in that voice. “And with everything that happened, how well we’re doing this season and everything last season, we can’t rely on the draft. And, you know.” His smile turned self-deprecating. “Our popularity has gone down a bit in certain ways since- everything. Where else are we going to get a skilled d-man who doesn’t mind playing with a guy with a boyfriend?”

            “That’s their loss, not yours,” Dex said, frowning.

            Jack just smiled. “If you want it, you can work for it. It’ll be hard but.”

            Jack stopped there, but Dex knew what he meant. All the good things, the things that were worth it, only came with hard work.

 

*~*~*

 

            After class, Nursey and Dex made their way to Annie’s. It was only their second week doing so, but Dex could feel that it would soon become routine, like how they watched cooking competition shows on Nursey’s laptop before bed a few times a week or how they’d share the bathrooms in hotels on roadies with instinctive ease. It had been Chowder’s idea to take a class together, something he’d been trying to get them to do since second semester their frog year, and when Bitty suggested the food class he’d taken with Jack his softie year, all three of them agreed on it.

            Then Chowder found out he’d missed fulfilling a credit he’d thought he’d done and was forced to take another class that started halfway through the Women, Food, & American Culture lecture, leaving Dex and Nursey in a class together. Alone. They’d long since gotten used to not having a Chowder-shaped buffer between them when they hung out, but there was something different about being in class together. They had different ways of going about learning, ways that Dex, prior to taking this class, had always assumed clashed with one another.

            Dex liked taking notes, with a physical notebook if the teacher didn’t talk too fast, and tried to write down everything Professor Atley put on the board and said. Nursey, in contrast, liked to record his lectures and listen to them back, keeping his computer open to jot down things that weren’t said or- Dex learned when he glanced over a few times- to write down lines of poetry he didn’t want to forget in between notes. Dex thought that this would infuriate him, Nursey’s apparent unconcern with paying attention or actually learning, but it didn’t. With Nursey’s hands free, it gave him the chance to look at Dex’s notes, which he didn’t hesitate to add to (which was made easy by Dex’s left-handedness and Nursey sitting on his right). Even those extra notes were helpful, or at times funny, and Dex found himself both learning and having fun at the same time.

            With choosing engineering, even with Samwell’s dedication to diversifying their student body’s interests, Dex didn’t have room for many electives. His Afro-Asian lit course last semester was the only non-STEM course he’d taken, and this semester this course had taken up that role. It wasn’t that Dex didn’t take his education seriously, especially not because it was a frivolous elective or anything, but it wasn’t as high-stress as his other courses, and he genuinely enjoyed the curriculum even though it didn’t make him work for it like his other courses did. And Nursey’s presence just elevated the whole thing. Even though it was only the second week of classes, Dex knew that it would be his favorite course of the semester, possibly the whole year.

            It started raining on their way to Annie’s, and when Dex pulled out his umbrella, Nursey chirped him, so Dex refused to let him under it, which led to a small, public wrestling match and the both of them falling into a puddle. Dex grumbled the rest of the way to the coffee shop, but when Nursey put his wet arm over Dex’s equally wet shoulders, Dex couldn’t help but feel warmer. Once at Annie’s, Nursey smiled charmingly at the barista, who fluttered under the attention despite Nursey being soaking wet, and gave him a warm pastry on the house. Nursey tipped extra, so Dex didn’t feel completely terrible about sharing it as they took a seat at a table near the front windows.

            Nursey sighed, looking out the window, and Dex rolled his eyes. “What? Rain isn’t good for your poetry?” He knew how frequently Nursey wrote during autumn, which he assumed was some weird bond he had with the leaves, and he assumed that winter froze his inspiration, or something ridiculous like that.

            Nursey flicked a sugar packet at Dex’s hand, but it bounced off lamely and Nursey frowned. “Nah, I just want it to snow.”

            “If it snows, the roadie will be postponed, and I want to kick some Yale ass,” Dex said, sipping his coffee.

            Nursey offered him a fist bump in solidarity, but said, “Of course, but still. It doesn’t have to be too heavy a snow. Just a light one.” He glanced outside at the rain once again. “Don’t you like snow?”

            “I don’t know. It kind of loses its appeal after the twentieth time you have to walk home from hockey practice in it.” Dex took another sip of his coffee, watching as Nursey continued to look out the window. He brushed his thumbs up and down the outsides of the cup, soft, and smiled a little.

            “At Andover, whenever it snowed, everyone was a kid again.” He looked at Dex again. “Everyone was so uptight there. Everything was about the next test, the next game, being better than the person next to you.” His thumbs paused on the cup. “But when it snowed, everyone loved it. I don’t know what it was, but the teachers wouldn’t be able to hold our attention, all anyone wanted to do was play in it, and if we got a snow day, there’d be snowmen and snow angels and snowball fights everywhere. It was like the closest thing to Samwell I had there without Shitty.” He took a sip of his drink and Dex glanced away from where Nursey’s neck was bared, tempting.

            “That sounds shitty,” Dex said. “Not the snow thing, but everyone being so tense all the time.”

            Nursey shrugged, but looked down. “It was the atmosphere. Everybody wanted to be president or own a fortune-500 company or change the world one day, and the pressure just- it was a lot. I didn’t completely escape it, either.”

            “But you’re so chill,” Dex said, mock-shocked.

            Nursey stuck his tongue out at him, but when he kept talking his face wasn’t so downturned. “After Shitty- well. Shitty was great, he was the first best friend I’d ever had, and he was crazy. I mean, one time he froze the swimming pool so we could play shinny on it, or he pulled me out of class to go steal the principal’s underwear another time.” He smiled and shook his head. “When he was gone, I didn’t really know how to handle all the stress anymore and I didn’t want to be a burden and tell anybody, so I had a lot of anxiety and stress I just hid from everybody.” His smile turned rueful. “When I had a breakdown in the middle of my chem final, they sent me to a therapist. She put me on meds and taught me some coping tools. So.” He shrugged again. “It got better after that.”

            Dex needed to remind Nursey of a lot of things, where his textbook was and when they had roadies they needed to pack for, but Nursey always remembered his meds. He’d explained once, with a shrug and a handful of words, that they were for anxiety, and Dex had never pushed. He knew that there were times when Nursey got withdrawn and just liked to sit quietly in their room for a while, he knew that sitting with him helped, sometimes. But he’d never known more than the surface stuff, what Nursey couldn’t hide, and it was overwhelming, somehow, to hear Nursey talk about it.

            There were things they’d learned about each other through the years. They knew each other’s routines, the way they smiled and how they angered, what things they liked to eat at breakfast, when they were lying and when they needed to be allowed to lie. Dex loved knowing these things about Nursey. He’d never known someone that intimately before. But there’d been a select few things they’d actually told one another about. Dex was a learning-by-seeing kind of person, and Nursey was the same. They’d never needed to hear it plainly, but the act of actually saying it felt monumental, vulnerable, breathtaking.

            “My parents never really believed in therapy,” Dex said, not simply to offer something back but because he wanted to tell it. “We don’t like to- talk about things. That’s why- my whole thing with Bitty, the baking and stuff.” He shrugged. He’d never articulated it to someone else before and wasn’t sure how to describe it really. “I can talk.”

            Nursey smiled at him, something tumultuous and wonderful and small at the same time. “You can talk with me, too. If you want,” he said, and it wasn’t pushing even though Nursey loved to push his buttons.

            They knew each other so well just from watching and reading between the things they said. It made Dex wonder if speaking plainly might push them past that. Maybe to something more.

 

*~*~*

 

            Dex usually didn’t mind roadies. The roadie bus had an air of the Haus to it, comradery and fun and a little bit of stinky frat boy. He always sat six rows back, by the window if he could beat Nursey to it, with Chowder in front of him and Ollie and Wicks behind them. Chowder, if he didn’t fall asleep, would usually turn around and make him and Nursey play a car game with him, and when Ollie and Wicks got involved, so would the rest of the bus, and they’d make their way to games playing I Spy or Guess Who and laughing like idiots.

            Today, he didn’t feel like playing, mostly because what was waiting for him at the end of the drive. It wasn’t the team they were playing- Dartmouth had a good team, but they’d beaten them earlier in the season in OT, and Dex felt they’d gotten a lot better since then- but what would follow. Because of everything that had happened and how close Hanover was to his hometown, Dex’s parents had decided to drive in with JJ for the game. It shouldn’t have worried him. They would see each other for a dinner after the game and then he’d go back to the hotel the team was staying at and his parents would drive back home. It would be an hour, maybe two, and it was just his immediate family, so no homophobic uncles or suspicious aunts, just his parents and his brother.

            Still, his heart pounded with every mile they got closer, and he opted out of the game of Finish That Lyric, instead putting in his headphones and trying not to think too much. When they got to the venue, he did the same, kept his headphones in and his head down through gearing up, Bitty’s pep talk, right up until they got on the ice. Despite his headspace, hockey came like it always did. He could skate and check and pass without thinking too hard. First period, they were one goal up and buzzing with it, and Dex didn’t think about his family during the break, guzzled water and grinned back when Nursey offered a fist bump.

            Second period, Dex saw his parents sitting a few rows back behind the opposing goal and froze, and his check wasn’t hard enough to stop the Dartmouth forward from scoring. He beat himself up about it, eyes flickering over to his family, shoulders shaking on the bench. In the second break, Nursey leaned into his space, fingers pulling at Dex’s jersey, grounding. He said, “You’ve fucking got this, dude,” and somehow Dex believed it.

            Third period, last five minutes, looking like it was going to go into OT again. Chowder had pulled a muscle during practice a week ago and Dex could tell, even through the mask (both the goalie one and Chowder’s super serious playing one) that C was hurting. Dex didn’t want it going to OT and all he could think was that they needed to score, keep Dartmouth from scoring, _win_. And then it happened, like fate. Nursey was there, looking fucking beautiful as he glided through two opposing d-man, puck on his tape, and he looked up and their eyes met and Dex _knew_.

            In the next second, Dex had the puck and he was slapping it straight behind the Dartmouth goalie’s ear, and Nursey slammed into him just as it hit the net. “ _Fucking beaut!”_ Nursey screamed, in his ear, and Dex was laughing and hugging back and it felt like he was flying with it. He couldn’t imagine anything better than being on the ice, hug-tackled by the people he loved.

            The game ended without another goal and everyone patted his helmet in the locker room, congratulating him. Dex couldn’t stop smiling, not through showering and pulling on his clothes and getting his wet hair ruffled by literally everybody. When he shouldered his bag and made to leave, Nursey was waiting outside the locker room for him, grinning. He threw his arm around Dex’s shoulders and pulled him close as they started walking. His mouth was so close to Dex’s ear when he said, “Fucking beautiful goal, dude.”

            Dex huffed, leaning into him. “Nice assist for you, too.”

            Nursey shrugged, but smiled, smug. “You’d be nowhere without me, obviously.”

            Dex flushed, but said, “I wouldn’t be where I am, at least.”

            Nursey blinked and looked down at him, eyes full of emotion for a moment. Dex held his breath. Then Nursey grinned and said, “That was pretty gay, Sexy Dexy.”

            Dex shoved him, but not enough to dislodge him, and started laughing when Nursey did. They turned the corner, still laughing, all over each other, only to come face to face with Dex’s parents and JJ. Dex tensed instantly, pulling away, and Nursey started a confused, “Dex-?” before he saw them, too. He dropped his arm and Dex hated the look on his face. Resigned. Flat. Chill.

            His parents weren’t as expressionless. His dad’s eyes were wide, lips turned down at the corners. His mother’s mouth opened in a terribly upsetting way as she blinked rapidly. JJ’s lips twitched like they wanted to smirk even as his eyes were intent, concerned, because he was still a dick no matter how much he loved Dex. Ma coughed, breaking the silence first, and smiled, even if it wavered. She opened her arms and moved forwards, saying, “Great game, honey.”

            “Ma, I’m all wet from the shower,” he said, though he hugged her back. Her hands faltered at his sides, twitching, before hugging him tightly, the way he remembered from before. He hugged back and closed his eyes so he didn’t have to look at his dad’s face.

            “It really was a good game, son,” Dad said, clapping a hand to Dex’s shoulder, later than he usually would’ve. “That goal was a beauty.” He glanced over Dex’s shoulder, presumably at Nursey. “And a good assist on your part. Nurse, right?” Dad stuck out his hand and Dex watched Nursey take it, smiling that fake Andover smile of his, the same one Shitty used when he talked to people at Harvard.

            “Derek,” Nursey said, shaking Dad’s hand.

            “Oh, Will stayed with you over the summer, didn’t he?” Ma said, smiling pleasantly. “It was so kind of you to invite him.”

            Nursey’s eyes flickered to Dex, but he didn’t say anything. They both knew that wasn’t how it had happened. “My parents work a lot,” he said, as if it were a line. “So Dex- Will was good company.”

            “You two are pretty close, huh?” JJ said, peering in around Ma’s shoulder, grinning shittily. Dex flushed and refused to look at Nursey. Ma hit JJ and told him to shush.

            “It is so nice that Will has such a good- friend down there,” Ma said, her smile faltering. She glanced at Dex and Dex knew what she was thinking. She looked back at Nursey and asked, “Would you like to come to dinner with us? It would be nice to get to know you better.”

            The idea of Nursey sitting at a table with Dex’s parents, with _JJ_ , instantly set Dex on edge, but he couldn’t just say that. Thankfully, Nursey seemed to understand anyway, as he said, “Ah, I’d love to, but I have this essay I’ve got to finish tonight. Maybe another time.” Dex knew that Nursey had no deadlines tomorrow, and the only class he had was Women, Food, and American Culture, which Dex knew had nothing due tomorrow. Nursey sent Dex a small, encouraging smile, and took Dex’s gear bag to bring back to the roadie bus with him after saying quick goodbyes.

            Dex went with his parents to a restaurant a handful of minutes away. It was fine, nice even. Ma talked about the new drivers at her jobs and how they were driving her crazy more than anything else. Dad spoke only about the game for a bit before asking how the renovations in the Haus were going, which Dex mentioned to him from time to time. JJ was a dick, but after the first couple of jokes about Nursey and the team, he complained about his job and joked with Dex instead of against him. Dex even got dessert, this sw’awesome lava cake thing he was sure Bitty would love.

            At the end of the meal, Dex felt a relief he immediately replaced with guilt when he recognized. He loved his family, and he did enjoy spending time with them when the hesitation wasn’t there, but after being caught with Nursey like that, hanging on one another, it just felt like another thing his parents thought about him and wouldn’t ask about. They thought they knew so much about him, things that separated them and caused all this tension, but they refused to talk to him directly. Growing up, it hadn’t bothered him, because it was all he’d known, but now…

            Dad and JJ had to go to the bathroom, so Dex and his mom waited near the front of the restaurant to drive to the hotel. They were going to drop Dex off before driving back and Dex was itching to be in a hotel room with Nursey, where people knew him and spoke to him and loved him unconditionally. He pulled on his jacket in preparation, as did his ma, and they stood in the foyer, waiting, silent for a minute or two.

            “Derek seems like a nice boy,” Ma said. Dex looked at her and her eyes were insistent, contrasting with her seemingly pleasant smile.

            Dex nodded, looking down. “He’s a good guy.”

            “You- if you wanted to bring him home sometime,” Ma said, “we- we’d really like that.” Dex looked up with a snap, felt his forehead wrinkle as he looked down at her.

            “What?”

            Her eyes flickered away and she fidgeted in her spot. “He seems nice, and we- your father picked up all these books from the library about- about that stuff and I think we could behave if you brought a- him home. I don’t know about the rest of the family, but we really would like to meet him, especially if-”

            “Mom, Ma, stop, I.” Dex shook his head. Mom stared up at him, her eyes wide and earnest, even as she fidgeted. “Nursey isn’t- we’re not dating.”

            His mother’s shoulders fell a little and she frowned. “Oh.”

            “Yeah, we’re just- we’re friends.” His mom nodded, her lips pursed into a considering frown. Dex replayed what she’d just said in his mind and blinked at her, surprised. “Dad got… books?”

            Mom’s eyes refocused as she looked back up at him. “Well, we didn’t know how- we really weren’t familiar with the whole thing. You know how your dad likes research.” She smiled, commiserating, and Dex felt like he was maybe going to cry. “I found this website on the internet where other parents talk about these sorts of things. That helped me.”

            “You…” Dex didn’t know what to say.

            “It’s not- we’re so sorry for everything that happened, honey. We know that this is so much harder on you than us, and we hate that we made it even harder. We should have been better parents.” She reached out and squeezed his arm. Dex inhaled sharply, dazed.

            “It’s alright,” he said, because he didn’t want his mom to be sad.

            She shook her head, vehement. “No, it wasn’t right of us, and we’re going to be better. Your dad too, even if he doesn’t say it.” She stood taller and Dex felt like a kid again, small and vulnerable and loved. “We love you, and we would love you no matter what. We don’t care that you’re- you’re gay.”

            Even as impressed as he was with his mother for saying the actual word, Dex coughed, awkward. “I’m not.” Ma’s eyes widened to comical proportions. He hurried to add, “I like both, so- bi.”

            Ma frowned for a moment before nodding. “Alright. No difference, love you just the same.” She pulled him down into a hug and Dex felt it, felt at home there, for the first time in months, years maybe. When she pulled back, she peered at him. “So you really aren’t dating that boy?”

            Dex huffed a small laugh and shook his head. “Really, I’m not.”

            She nodded. “Do you- anyone else?”

            “Um, no.”

            “Are you asexual then? I read about that, too, and I don’t mind if-”

            “No, no, I’m not- no. Thanks for the support, though.” Dex coughed, felt his cheeks flush.

            “Well, when’s the last time you had a date? I won’t be having my son become a hermit at twenty-one-”

            “God, Mom, we’re not getting into this right now,” he said, whining a little. He hadn’t been expecting the interrogation. Still, even that felt like a regular mom thing, and the familiarity of it curled happily in his chest.

            Not long after that his dad and brother got back from the bathroom. Mom and Dad exchanged a look and then Dad clapped a hand to Dex’s shoulder and gave him a big smile. Dex sighed under it, and the drive back was nearly free of all the tension Dex had felt since the summer. It wasn’t the same as it had been, wasn’t “normal”, but maybe it was better, somehow.

 

*~*~*

 

            They had a three day weekend halfway through the month, and Jack invited a bunch of them to Providence. It was like a sleepover, with nine of them in a two-bedroom apartment. The first night they had a nice dinner, courtesy of Bitty with Dex’s help- “Jack still ain’t half the helper you are, hun, I’d better whip that boy into shape, eh?”- which left them all too full to do anything else, so they watched a movie and fell asleep right afterwards. With Jack and Bitty in the main bedroom, then Shitty, Lardo, Ransom, and Holster in the second one, the frogs stayed out in the living room, sleeping on the couches. Chowder got his own, still recovering from his pulled muscle, and Dex and Nursey squeezed onto the other one. It was big enough that they could lie semi-comfortably with their heads on opposite arm rests, but Dex couldn’t help but wish they’d slept back-to-chest, close.

            The second day was spent fairly separate. Jack and Bitty went to the farmer’s market and Shitty and Holster were determined to see all of the tourist attractions in Providence- of which there were quite a few, despite Dex’s skepticism. Lardo joined them, wanting to see a museum nearby, and Ransom went, too, because where Holster went, and such. The frogs decided to grab a Frisbee Jack had from some fundraiser thing with the Falcs- it had a weird logo on it- and head to the park.

            It was too cold for the park to be busy, so they got a nice spot where the grass wasn’t damp from snow and threw the Frisbee around for a bit. It was fun, relaxing. Everything had been too tense for them lately. The transition from sophomore year to junior was too drastic. Everything was suddenly imminent; theses, majors, jobs, real life. Hockey was great, but it was serious. They wanted to win, and it wasn’t the light hearted game they’d played as kids, it was a job, a competition. On their down time, they were usually sleeping, or too tired from everything else to do anything fun.

            Today was a reprieve from all that, and Dex found himself smiling, laughing, more than he had in a while. Around lunch, Bitty and Jack arrived, with a basket filled with sandwiches, and the rest of the group followed a little while later full of stories about mean art museum security guards and bomb-ass architecture. Bitty and Jack shared a look as they split a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and Dex raised his eyebrows at Bitty, who blushed deeply but smiled, wide and happy, and Dex could taste the love in his own sandwich. Only one group of people recognized Jack, and of them only one person asked for a picture, the rest content to just tell him they thought he was an amazing player.

            They went back to Jack’s apartment after it started to rain and hung out there for a while. After dinner, when it just became night, Lardo declared that they were going to a club because she wanted to dance. Some of the group opted to stay home, but Dex decided he wanted to go. It had been a relaxing day and he had some pent-up energy he hadn’t been able to channel into a workout, and he thought the atmosphere of a club would deal with that nicely. He hadn’t packed club clothes, but he had a pair of jeans that were pretty tight and an old t-shirt that would pull across his shoulders well enough, and he met the rest of the group going- Holster, Ransom, and Nursey- in the foyer before departing.

            They hired an Uber, so no one had to be the designated driver, which meant they all stopped at the bar before breaking off across the dance floor. Dex downed a shot just to get loose and then followed Lardo over to a portion of the dance floor that wasn’t too crowded. Ransom and Holster had already made friends, dancing with a group of people who all looked ready to take them home. Dex lost track of Nursey for a while, letting the relentless nature of the club push away any thought other than dancing from his mind. Lardo disappeared sometime later; Dex couldn’t keep track of time if it wasn’t in songs.

            There was something intoxicating about it all. Dex usually didn’t like this kind of music, it was too repetitive and technical and had none of the natural musicality of the typical genres he listened to. But tonight it was exact kind of mindlessness that he needed to forget himself completely. He didn’t think of his family back in Maine or the essay he needed to finish by Monday or how desperately he wanted to win this year for Bitty, he just danced and moved and was. He didn’t even think about what he might look like, dancing like he was, which was probably at least partly the liquor’s fault, as he’d had three more shots since his first one.

            He felt someone press up behind him after a while, and though it felt nice, he wasn’t looking for a hookup. He turned around to tell the guy that only to see it was Nursey. They were now face to face, breathing in one another, the air around them warm and electric. Nursey grinned, a twist of a dare and danger, and Dex pressed closer. The beat became insistent, pulsing, and Dex liked it, but it scared him. He and Nursey were too close, touching in all these places, but it wasn’t fueled by his emotions or the buildup of two and a half years of friendship, it was lust and alcohol and sex.

            “Bathroom,” he yelled over the music, pulling away from Nursey. He booked it to the bathroom and cooled down for a minute, putting cold water on the back of his neck and breathing some non-hazy air. When he felt okay enough to leave, he found Lardo standing outside the door, the only one in the hallway. She had a glass of something frighteningly bright in her hand and she looked at him coolly.

            “Don’t hook up with him,” she said, voice quiet but firm.

            Dex felt his heart pound with the beat, now far away, detached. “What?”

            She sipped her drink before answering. “If it’s just sex, you’re a dick, and you’ll ruin what you have.”

            “I-” Dex shook his head. He felt mixed up, muddled from the alcohol and the thrumming bass and Lardo’s presence. “It wouldn’t-” He’d never told anyone but Bitty how he felt for Nursey- aside from that one girl at that party- but both those times were in kitchens, and he didn’t feel comfortable enough to voice the words then.

            Lardo seemed to get it anyway. The ice in her eyes melted, warmer, understanding. “This isn’t the place to do it,” she said, gesturing vaguely with her cup. “Take it from me. You want to have the conversation before anything goes further. It’ll cut out the confusion.” She tipped her drink at him, like a toast, and then walked off back into the club. Dex watched after her, feeling a bit like the person in movies who got otherworldly advice from a mystical figure who just then disappeared. He wanted to ask someone if that was real, if Lardo had actually been there, but no one was around to witness it.

            He returned to the club and danced for a bit. He didn’t press closer to Nursey than he would’ve before, laughing when Nursey danced ridiculously, and let everything fall back to where it was. On the ride home, Nursey fell asleep against Dex’s shoulder and it felt better than dancing did, more honest, more them.

 

*~*~*

 

            Dex usually didn’t rush. He was an organized person, who planned things out weeks before hand to make sure everything would happen when it was supposed to. But he’d forgotten to plug in his phone the night before, so his alarm didn’t go off, and Nursey wasn’t there to wake him up. He only got up when Bitty poked his head in to ask if he was feeling okay, because he’d known Dex had a meeting with his professor about a lab assignment he’d done. Dex raced through getting dressed and only remembered to grab his backpack because Bitty shoved it into his arms before he ran out the door.

            He was five minutes late through the door, which wasn’t a lot, but his professor was typically a very take-no-shit kind of person. Thankfully, she took his breathless explanation as excuse enough and still allowed him to talk with her. She addressed his questions concisely and he took notes, tempted to eat the mini-pies he saw Bitty had put in his bag. He waited until their meeting ended to pull one out and offered one to his professor. She took one with a smile.

            “Are these the famous pies I’ve heard about from the other teachers?” she asked, cutting into one daintily. Dex barely restrained himself from shoving the whole thing in his mouth.

            “Probably,” Dex said with a slight laugh. “Bitty makes them for everyone.”

            “Hmm.” She took her first bite and Dex saw the sparkle in her eye that everyone got from trying Bitty’s pastries for the first time. “He’s the hockey captain, yes?” At Dex’s nod, she said, “He’s the faster player I’ve ever seen at this level.”

            Dex’s eyebrows went up. “You’ve seen our games?”

            “I’m an avid fan,” she said, her smile small and sneaky. “I lived in Montreal for a time, and my mother loved to take me to games. I obviously can’t attend Bruins games unless to cheer the Habs on against them, so I attend college games when I can.”

            “Oh,” Dex said. He didn’t know how to talk about their season without dipping into his post-game interview voice, and he couldn’t just say they were doing well without feeling conceited.

            His professor said, “You’ve been having a very good season,” and took another bite. She hummed as she chewed. After she swallowed, she asked, “Have you ever thought of taking it further? I’m sure with the hype with Zimmermann you’ve been approached.”

            She said it inquiringly, kindly, but Dex couldn’t help but think she was asking if he was serious about computer engineering. “I definitely want to do my best this season, and the next,” Dex said, “but I’m focusing on my studies. I want my education to mean something.”

            Her eyebrows went up at that, and Dex felt like a child who’d said something out of place. She swallowed the bite she’d taken and asked, “How would going pro negate your time here?”

            Dex swallowed, though he hadn’t taken a bite, and said, “I want to use my degree, I- I can’t have just wasted these years.”

            His professor set her fork down and Dex sat up straighter in response. She looked at him, eyes serious but voice kind, as she said, “No matter what you do after this, your years at Samwell were not a waste. Think of the people you’ve met, the experiences you’ve had, the person you’ve become. Of course, the things you’ve learned, I’d hope, would aid you in life, but sometimes the things we learn become important in surprising ways.” She took a sip from the water on her desk, but Dex felt in the air that she wasn’t finished, and waited, breath held, for her conclusion. “If you’re worried that you owe it to someone, the school or your teachers or yourself, know that the best way to repay any of us is to live happily.” She got a mischievous glint in her eye and added, like an afterthought, “And, hey, if you retire from sports one day and get bored, you can always become an engineer then.”

            He didn’t know what to say to her, and muttered a thank-you before making an excuse to leave. She allowed him to, smiling like she understood, and Dex gathered his things to leave. He did have a class, but not for an hour or two, and it had started to rain sometime during his meeting so he couldn’t just sit outside and wait. As he pulled out his umbrella, he spotted a class letting out, Nursey among the crowd. It might have been a coincidence, but Dex never really believed in fate, or whatever. Nursey always had a class at this time, and Dex’s professor’s building was just across the Quad from where Nursey had that class. Nothing fateful about it, but still, when Nursey looked back at Dex, noticed him, and smiled widely, Dex couldn’t help but feel like it was a gift from the universe.

            _Live happily_ , his professor had said. _Huh_ , Dex thought, and walked over.

 

*~*~*

 

            Nursey walked into their room just as Dex said, “Bye, Ma,” into the phone. Dex sat up a little on his bed, putting his weight onto his elbows, and nodding back at Nursey’s greeting. Nursey walked over to his own bed and sat down, unlacing his boots to pull them off. He gestured with his chin at Dex’s phone.

            “You talk to her about the hockey thing?”

            Dex had reached out to Jack about possibly getting into the NHL, and the steps he’d have to take. He was too old for the draft, so he’d have to get an agent if he was serious about the whole thing. Jack was very serious about Dex finding the right agent for him and figuring out what he wanted from a team and getting a good contract. It hadn’t sunken in until he ended that phone call with Jack that he actually had a chance at playing hockey for a living, playing his favorite sport every day _for money_. It had left him dazed, which Nursey chirped him kindly for, and Bitty had smiled all while Dex raved about it during their last baking session. He’d yet to tell his parents, though, and Dex had been putting it off until he was sure, but.

            “Yeah,” he said, an unbidden smile pulling at his lips. It was early still, he knew, and he definitely wouldn’t start for another year and a half, but the idea made him happy, just thinking about it. He could see himself playing hockey every day for the next decade, something he had never felt about comp sci or engineering. He’d been searching for something he was as passionate about as Nursey was about literature, and it hadn’t occurred to him that he already had it right in front of him. And now he wanted it more than anything.

            Well. Maybe not anything.

            Nursey smiled from his bed, the kind, honest one they’d been exchanging more and more frequently. “That’s sw’awesome, dude,” he said, pulling off his boots. Dex smiled back, but sighed, letting his head fall back a little. “Why do you look so dreary then?”

            Dex looked over at him and made a face. “Dreary? Really?”

            “Fuck off,” Nursey said, laughing, and sat up straight. “Really, though, you good?”

            Dex sighed again and turned so he was sitting up as well. “Yeah, she was really excited about the hockey stuff. I- a part of me was worried she would be upset that I wouldn’t be working back home and stuff, but I think she’s known for a while now that I wasn’t coming back to Maine permanently.” He shrugged a little and smiled. “She was happy for me. Said I sounded “settled”, or whatever.”

            Nursey quirked his lips. “But?” he prompted.

            “Just typical mom stuff,” Dex said, waving his hand, dismissive. “Prodding about dates and stuff.” He offered a commiserating smile, as he knew Nursey’s grandmother, more than his mom, always pestered him about finding someone nice to marry (really she said “a nice Pakistani girl” but Nursey’s parents would have been happy with anyone who was nice). Nursey just frowned in response.

            “I thought you said things were better about that stuff,” he said, concern in his voice, and Dex shook his head.

            “No, not- it’s not the boy thing. If anything, the fact that my dating pool is doubled gives her double the reason to question why I haven’t gone out with anyone in months.” Dex flushed as he said it. He hadn’t meant to let that on.

            Nursey’s frown didn’t alleviate. “You haven’t?”

            Dex felt his face burning but shrugged anyway, faux-casual. “No. Not since- like, last year.” The last person he’d been with was Luke, who he hadn’t seen since a little less than a year prior. He’d gone out, partied, but every time he had the chance to pick up, he couldn’t help but feel empty. He’d been asked out, even gone on a couple first dates, but he couldn’t help but compare them to Nursey every time. With Luke, it had been pleasure without emotion, and after being raised on that, it had been fine. But loving Nursey made everything else seem inferior. Why bother hooking up if there was nothing more to it? Why bother trying to date someone when he knew Nursey was already it for him?

            Nursey fidgeted on his own bed. His eyes looked down, scanning the floor, a guilty action, and his socked toes, now free of their boots, tapped a little on the floor. Dex knew him too well not to read it, the little guilty pleasure of it, and he stared. Could it mean what he thought? It did, it had to, Dex knew Nursey so well, he had to be right. Nursey was- he was pleased that Dex hadn’t been dating. Guilty for being happy, but happy nonetheless. Which could mean…

            “What about you?” he asked, his heart pounding, his boldness leaving him as soon as the words did.

            Nursey looked up, eyes wide, caught. “What?”

            Dex swallowed down his fear. “Have you been- dating?”

            Nursey shrugged and looked to the side, and even if Dex couldn’t see through his fake chill with ease, he’d be able to see the discomfort in the movement. “Not really,” he said, mumbled really, and Dex felt hope surge up in his chest.

            It fueled his next words. “I’m kind of in love,” he said, the _with you_ not quite coming out. Nursey looked up, and his expression was closed to even Dex. He couldn’t read the whole, but the parts, the twitching fingers and desperate eyes and tense shoulders, Dex thought he knew what they meant. “So I haven’t- I can’t go out with anything else. I’m stuck on him.”

            “Oh?” Nursey’s tone had a semblance of interest in it, but his body was tense, restrained, fighting to run.

            Dex didn’t know how to describe how he felt about this guy, this amazing, ridiculous, _unchill_ guy, so he pushed himself from his bed and stopped. Nursey looked at him, fear and heartbreak in his eyes, maybe. Dex took a deep breath. “I- you. He’s you.”

            Nursey blinked. “What?” fell out of his mouth like a breath, an exhale, a prayer. Dex didn’t know if he had it in him to say it again before he knew how Nursey felt, but Nursey pushed onto his feet, too, took two stumbling steps to where Dex was standing. His eyes moved over Dex’s face, reverent, and Dex thought he knew how Nursey felt but he wanted to _hear it_. “You… love me?”

            It wasn’t so much a question, but Dex nodded anyway. “Yeah, so.” Dex swallowed, saw Nursey track the movement of it. “Screw you, for that.”

            Nursey laughed, a disbelieving sound. “What?”

            Dex felt it all tumble out of him, blamed Bitty and baking for it, really. “Do you know how hard it is to be in love with you? You- you’re so fucking beautiful all the time and you know all these amazing things and the way you look at the world like it’s all just fucking poetry waiting for the right words, you just.” He took another deep breath and it shook between his teeth. “You’re so. So.”

            Nursey shook his head, but he was smiling, and his hand came up to curl around Dex’s jaw, and it _fit_ , like them. His thumb brushed at Dex’s cheek, and he said, soft, “In the flush of love’s light we dare be brave, and suddenly we see that love costs us all we are and ever will be.” He moved impossibly closer and his lips brushed Dex’s as they said, “Yet it is only love which sets us free.”

            And then they were kissing, and it felt like baking, hockey, laughter, pushed together like pie dough with pleasure and happiness and _love_. God, it felt like everything. Dex could feel it in his chest, like hope, could feel it everywhere even though they weren’t touching much and it was simple, chaste. Nursey pulled back after a breath or two, sighing, and Dex couldn’t help but pull him back in, fingers twisted in the hips of Nursey’s sweater, mouth suddenly desperate, hungry, as the tension of the years behind them broke and they finally came together.

 

*~*~*

 

            Bitty smiled at Dex as he entered the kitchen, and pointed over at the mixer. “Start up a crust, would you?” Dex grabbed the ingredients and measured them carefully, listening to Bitty hum as he washed the dishes from breakfast. Feeling generous, Bitty had hosted a big team breakfast after the harsh practice this morning, pushing everyone to their max. No one complained, because everyone wanted a victory, wanted to go all the way, but the breakfast went a long way to alleviating the post-practice exhaustion.

            Dex had class after, one of his computer courses, and it had been an interesting day. The concept the professor had detailed was confusing, but Dex enjoyed the lecture after he figured out what was going on. Still, he couldn’t help but want to be back home, in the Haus, with Bitty.  Now that he was, relief flooded him, and he relaxed into the movements of the recipe. Flour and butter came together, and Dex dumped it out onto the counter to push with his fingers. The feel of it between his hands, working into something whole, cohesive, it felt like accomplishment, and he smiled as he rolled it into two discs.

            Bitty finished up the dishes- adding the mixing bowl to the pile- and dried his hands before grabbing his own ingredients. “What’re we making?” Dex asked as Bitty began measuring things for the filling.

            “Cherry pie,” Bitty said, smiling. “Murder Stop&Shop had some lovely ones last time I went.”

            Dex hummed. “Not as good as the Farmer’s market in Providence, though.”

            “Oh, Lord, no. When they have things down there, they’re delicious. I can’t wait to live nearby, ‘cause I’m sure I’ll be inspired every time I go.” Bitty started talking, his voice soothing and consistent, about Providence and what he couldn’t wait to do when he lived there with Jack. He planned to continue his YouTube channel, as it had been getting more and more popular, and he’d found a bakery near Jack’s apartment that needed another baker, and were willing to hold the spot for him for a few months (which they’d only done after Bitty had given them a handful of pies). Dex liked hearing about Bitty’s hope for his life after college, and the pleasant tone he used when he spoke of it.

            Growing up like they did, there were times when they’d never dared to hope for anything better. They hadn’t been able to be themselves, were stifled and lonely for so many years, and any hope was dangerous, meant heartbreak and ruin and disappointment. Now, with Samwell around them, in this kitchen with a world outside full of potential, hope came easier, happier. Bitty would live in a beautiful apartment with his amazing boyfriend doing what he loved. Dex, well, he had talked to a few agents, talked to Georgia specifically, and he and Nursey had been going well for the past few weeks. It was hard to let himself hope, still, but he felt good. The future felt good.

            Dex grabbed the saranwrap and covered the discs. He turned and put them in the fridge, taking out two other discs already chilled, and started to roll them out. There was a lull in conversation, so as he pushed the rolling pin, he said, “My dad’s been researching about teams and stuff. He’s very serious about me finding the best one.”

            Bitty laughed pleasantly. “How does he feel about the Falcs?” Though Dex was looking around, he knew that if Georgia offered, he would probably be joining the Falconers.

            “The Falcs are basically the ruler to measure all others by,” Dex said, smiling. He moved onto the next disc, rolling it out in order to cut the strips for a lattice. Tentatively, he added, “He also likes that they’re obviously an LGBT friendly organization. He doesn’t want me to have to stay quiet about- you know. Anymore.” Dex had told them he didn’t want to make things hard for them at home, with the family and stuff. They’d said that they were done with sacrificing his comfort for theirs, and that they’d support him in whatever his decision was, stilted in their words, but determined.

            It still brought a smile to his face now, and as he turned to get a knife to start cutting strips, Bitty saw it and mirrored it. “That’s great, hun. I’m really happy for you.”

            Dex’s cheeks hurt with his happiness, and he didn’t need to say it for Bitty to know he felt the same way. He turned back to the island to start cutting strips just as Nursey and Chowder got home from class. Nursey smiled at Dex, and the meaning behind it made Dex’s chest flutter. He came up behind Dex and wrapped his arms around Dex’s waist, pressing a kiss to Dex’s neck.

            Dex grumbled, “You’re wet,” as it had started raining a little while ago and Nursey had walked home in it.

            “Shut up, you’re fine,” Nursey responded, lips still against Dex’s skin, and Dex shivered, smiling down at his dough. He was fine. He was happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all folks! Thank you so much for reading, all of you who made it here, I dearly appreciate it.  
> If you didn't catch it, the poem Nursey quotes in both this chapter and chapter two are from Maya Angelou, the first being I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and the second being Touched by An Angel. Both are lovely poems and I recommend checking them out if you haven't as of yet.  
> Let me know what you think in the comments below, or leave a kudo if you think I deserve it.  
> If you'd like to see some rambling ficlets and lots of cats pictures, come check me out on Tumblr, as likeshipsonthesea.  
> Thank you for reading :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! As you probably can tell, there will be more chapters after this, ending with a total of five. I already have the chapters written- though now I need to edit them- and I hope to post them somewhat regularly. Kudos and comments will definitely quicken me up, so feel free to leave either of those.  
> I hope you enjoyed :)


End file.
